Away, Fine Lad
by PipOfTheBT
Summary: A young boy of Rohan flees with his younger sister when their lives are abruptly changed forever, but to what end? A WIP.
1. Chapter 1

Away, Fine Lad

By Pippin 

**Rohan, West Emnet**

**Year 3018, February ("Astron") 25 (Appendix B: "The Company pass the Argonath and camp at Parth Galen. First Battle of the Fords of Isen; Theodred son of Theoden slain")**

**Chapter One: Messenger**

The wind was bitter cold as it whipped through the grass to where the youth sat, but he did not notice as he concentrated on the scrap of paper that he held carefully in one hand. In the other hand he held the piece of charcoal and let it move across the paper. His hunched shoulders provided enough shelter for the paper against the wind, but even so, it crinkled and its corners waved every few moments. Oh, if only he could go inside where surely there was a fire burning in the hearth. But once inside, he knew he would not be able to do this right.

The slight tremor of the earth near where his elbow leaned into the ground caused him to turn his head upwards. The mare before him was beginning to dance in a tight circle, practically begging him to hurry up. He hoped the mare would be still for a little while longer. Then he would at least be able to finish drawing her flank. After that, if she moved, it would not be such a bother. As if the mare had read his mind, she snorted air that turned to white steam in the crisp twilight, but did not move, other than flicking her tail several times.

As his charcoal scratched across the last part of his preliminary drawing, he rubbed at it with his thumb to begin showing the rough pattern of her shaggy winter coat. Yes, she was a good creature, not the prettiest by breeding standards, but nice in her own way, and she did her work as well as any other horse. Stomping her foot, she seemed to insist that he finish soon, and he nodded amiably as if to tell her that he was almost done, and that as long as she stayed within his sight, she was free to move about now. There, her charcoal coat was beginning to resemble her, and with that he moved on to define a small swirling of the hairs. He bent his head down and tightened his grip on the charcoal, not minding the black smudges that were beginning to travel all the way above his wrist.

A face peered up at him above his page as if it had been born out of magic. For a split second, he was startled, and then his surprise switched to just being cross at himself for being surprised in the first place. He believed his younger sister took a secret delight in appearing that way when he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, and lately it had become increasingly vexing. Why couldn't she just walk up behind him and make herself known instead of walking on her toes without making a sound. It was almost as if she were trying to be as quiet as those elves they knew existed somewhere beyond the boundaries of Rohan. It just wasn't fair that she could sneak around him all the time and get so much fun out of it.

She grinned, her blonde hair flying in nearly four directions at once in the gusts of wind that tugged at it. One front tooth was missing, and he knew from all the time she spent wiggling the other that the second was due to fall out soon as well. She pointed to the drawing, her small hand grabbing for it so quickly that he barely had time to hold it away from her. No, she couldn't have it, she'd smear it up! He shook his head wildly.

She danced around his back and again reached for the paper, but again he saved it from her grasp. Exasperated, she finally flopped down beside him in the grass and pointed to the mare who had moved several feet further away when the girl had started jumping about like a grasshopper.

When he affirmed that it was of the horse, she smiled again. While carefully keeping her fingers away from the drawing and making it extra clear that she wasn't going to touch it, she leaned over his shoulder to where he had started to work on it again. It really did look like Hwesta, right down to the way the horse would position her ears when she was deigning to allow someone to sketch her. If she didn't know better, Brytta would say the horse carried noble blood somewhere in her line that made her act regal whenever someone was paying special attention to her. But the mare's appearance was enough to dissuade any Rohirrim from even suggesting aloud that the mare came from high bloodlines. She was a farm horse, and while she was a good one, that was certainly all she would ever be. A war horse she certainly was not!

"Brytta!" the call sounded over the grass, and the girl reluctantly stopped watching her brother stroke the charcoal down Hwesta's smudgy foreleg. "Did you find Fastred?" her mother added, and instantly the girl remembered with chagrin the reason she had gone across the field in the first place. She tugged at Fastred's sleeve, and when he turned his face towards her, she pointed towards the house.

"_Modor_," she explained when she caught his eye, and she could see the disappointment there. She could tell he had been engulfed in the drawing, and she knew he'd have to wait until another day to finish it properly, since the sky was already turning a the same color as his charcoal, except for the few stars that showed through the darkness. _'Sort of like where the paper shows through real pale where he hasn't smudged the charcoal all the way over it,'_ Brytta thought to herself as she walked ahead of her brother towards the house. While the wind still played with her hair and skirt, she almost laughed at the idea that maybe the sky was one big piece of paper that went all over everything at night, and someone had just scribbled all over it with charcoal, and the stars were the parts of the paper that hadn't gotten completely covered with black. She made a note to herself to try to explain this theory to Fastred, although exactly how she would was going to would take a bit more thought. It was a silly idea after all, one he probably wouldn't appreciate anyway. Besides, it was much nicer keeping the silly ideas to oneself to think about while knowing no one else would ever be thinking about the same thought_. 'Much nicer indeed,'_ she thought, and decided not to try to explain to Fastred about her nonsense after all.

When the two reached the front door, Brynne was waiting for them. She turned first to the girl who shifted on both feet and looked past her mother through the open doorway to the warm hearth inside and the kettle of something – a sort of soup, surely – that sat near it. Brytta could practically feel the flames melting away the cold that was eating her ears. And the soup, oh, she could almost taste it already.

"I asked you a question," came her mother's voice in her direction, and she turned her eyes up. She knew she had been preoccupied and hadn't been listening, and could only hope it wouldn't delay the soup any longer than was necessary. Fastred, now finished lamenting that he could not finish his sketch that evening, glared at her. He was shivering too.

"What, _modor_?" she asked.

"How long did it take you to forget that I asked you to fetch your brother for me?"

Brytta dropped her gaze to inspect her feet and the wood boards of the floor that made up the small covered porch of their home. Even by averting her eyes, however, she knew her mother was raising one eyebrow and waiting for her answer. She didn't need to turn around to know Fastred was becoming more and more impatient with her as well.

"A long time," she said, but the wind was too loud, and so she was forced to repeat herself. "Very long. I mean, I'm sorry, I forgot, and he was drawing and I wanted to see because it was so good!" Her words bubbled out before she could stop them. "He was drawing Hwesta. She looks really pretty," she explained.

At this, Brynne gave a short bark of laughter despite herself. "Hwesta looked pretty? Fastred must have been imagining more than actually drawing her then."

"No, it looked like her, really! Look at it! Hwesta's not that ugly." Brytta smiled, hoping that by leading her mother away from the subject of why she had forgotten to fetch her brother so he could do his chores, that they could go inside and be warm. The fire looked so good. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the fire even though she wasn't near it, hoping that if Fastred could imagine Hwesta being that pretty looking that she could imagine fire and be warm because of thinking about it hard enough.

It didn't work.

Brynne reached a hand towards Fastred as a request to see his sketch. Pulling the wrinkled paper from his trouser pocket, he relinquished it. His mother squinted at the drawing in the twilight, but finally stepped backwards over the thresh-hold so the firelight could aid her in seeing it. After staring at it for several seconds and taking in the detail her son had applied to his artwork, she turned her eyes back to Fastred and Brytta, a smile playing on her lips.

"There's soup in the kettle, so get the dirt and charcoal off your hands – Fastred!" she took his wrist and pulled him to a stop as he followed his sister into the room towards the bucket of water that sat near the hearth as well. "You coat, you've gotten charcoal over the sleeves of it. And you didn't wear your hat outside!" she pointed to the sleeves of his coat and to his glowing red ears as she spoke, then tousled his hair where his hat should have been. "Wash," she said, pointedly tugging the edge of his sleeves, then rubbed at his head again and exclaimed half-heartedly, "and hat".

Fastred looked back up at her, then to the peg by the door where his hat hung, then back to his mother, and nodded. Next time he would remember.

When both children had sufficiently scrubbed as much of the dirt from their fingernails that she could manager to convince them to get off and when they had insisted that the rest was just skin, they both dug into the bowls of soup. Fastred rubbed at one ear that was still pink from the cold, and Brytta giggled when he sneezed at the same time he had a mouth full of soup, causing him to clamp a hand over his mouth while his face turned a darker shade of crimson. However, her giggling stopped when she did the same halfway through her own bowl of soup. Turning her head, she saw her brother had not even noticed. For a moment, she wished he had giggled like she had when he had sneezed – it was sort of funny, after all. But then, she thought, it really was nice when she didn't get picked on for the same things she did to him. But no, he was absorbed in his soup and, as she thought was highly likely, thinking about how to draw Hwesta's other foreleg just right. To herself, Brytta would have liked to see him draw some flowers for the horse to wear around her neck, but he might not like that as it was a little bit too much like something a girl would draw. Still, he could draw very enchanting little flowers when he felt like it, and he hadn't drawn any since _Thri-milce_, and she wanted to see flowers again. It had been so long since she had seen flowers.

On an impulse, she reached for a sheet of paper from the small stack that lay by the bottle of soot ink on the shelf. With the tip of the paper, she reached and let it tickle the part of Fastred's neck that was not covered by his shirt collar. He jumped, and Brytta could not keep her giggle entirely muffled. Fastred scowled when he saw her face, and instantly she stopped, and before she lost his attention again she pushed the paper towards him. When he looked at her with a blank question in his eyes, she pulled the paper back and opened her palm for the charcoal. After he obliged and handed over his instrument, she carefully drew her best imitation of a flower; a small dot with three oval petals and a leafy stem that tilted slightly on the page. She pushed her work back to him, he understood, and smiled. Despite the fact that he had not appreciated being laughed at because of his sneezing – it was so cold out, and he really should have remembered his hat, his ears were still all numb - he did like it that he could do something better than his little sister could. It was even better that she openly acknowledged it and was always asking him to draw her something.

Brynne watched as Fastred bent his head over the paper, and silently hoped that they would use the pieces they had to their fullest potential. While it was inexpensive enough and could be easily bartered for, no one wanted to go out in this weather. No one, that is, except her son, who had gone and sat outside in it for thirty minutes to draw a horse. And it wasn't even a well-bred horse, not one of the horses famous to Rohan, and certainly not one of the mearas. She chuckled at the thought, then sobered. The horse was ugly, and stubborn on top of it, but somehow Fastred had managed to even convince her for several seconds that the horse was beautiful. She didn't know what it was about the sketch, was it the eyes he had given the mare? She wished she could look at it again, for when she had first seen the sketch, it was almost as if Hwesta was speaking to her from the page, or at least whickering. She wondered briefly if a little magic were involved, but dismissed the thought and replaced it with the decision that it was simply talent combined with imagination.

"Look at the flowers he drew for me!" Brytta said as she skidded to a stop before her mother, the paper carefully grasped in her fist. From where he sat as the table, Fastred smiled and returned to his soup after placing the charcoal back in his pocket, despite the disapproving look Brynne sent him. Ah well, he would be the one to clean it then, she decided. She focused her attention to the paper that her daughter held out to her. On it, small flowers dotted a field, and at a first glance it was a simple view of spring from a boy who knew his sister longed for flowers to look at. But as she peered closer, Brynne trained her gaze to the mounds of earth that the flowers grew upon, and knew that he had drawn not the flowers of spring, but instead simbelmyne, which grew upon the mounds of the kings after they were buried. She looked closer still, and the sound of her daughter wiggling impatiently for her mother to give the drawing the praise it deserved faded as she became aware of the tips of swords he had drawn barely poking out from the tips of grass. Above one flower she looked to see a hoof of something – a dead horse, surely – and near it a ripped banner of Rohan, with the white horse still barely visible underneath the grass he had cleverly drawn over it.

"Did you watch him draw all of this?" she asked Brytta, and the little girl shook her head.

"No, I just asked him to draw me flowers and I finished my soup while he did. Even the carrots." She scrunched her nose, but then her eyes brightened again. "Aren't they pretty?" she asked, pointing to the charcoal flowers.

"Yes, yes they are," Brynne replied, although she no longer looked at Brytta. Instead she watched as her son finished the last bits of his soup and ladled himself another smaller serving. Yes, she decided, he was growing older, and would soon be twelve. It was little wonder he was drawing battle scenes when he was asked to draw flowers. Yet he had not struck her as the type of lad to do so, being as withdrawn as he was. But she also knew from what the other women of the hold said that boys this age were all following the news of the darkness that was sweeping over the land with baited breath, almost, as Brynne had said the other day, as if they were hoping for war.

No, she would not dwell on such thoughts. He was a boy going on twelve who simply thought about war as much as any other lad– he would not fight in it. She vowed not to think of the subject again. Besides, she consoled herself, he would not help many, would probably even be a hindrance to those around him.

"_Modor?_" Brytta's voice interrupted her thoughts. "There's someone at the door," she explained, and Brynne quickly let the drawing fall back into the girl's eager hands. As Brytta trotted off to gaze at her newest possession, her mother lifted the latch and found herself greeted by Leofwine, a messenger whose home was beyond several holds to the south of theirs. He owned a great many horses, and while none were the sort that were bought for breeding purposes, nearly everyone knew him as the man to go to when one needed a horse for farming.

"Leofwine," Brynne exclaimed, ushering the red-faced man inside at once. "We have soup here, if you'd like some, Brytta!" The girl appeared from the bedroom adjacent to the main room, the drawing still clutched in her hand. "Fetch a fresh bowl for Master Leofwine."

She began to direct the man to sit, but he declined and already motioned a decline to Brytta with the bowl of soup she had made ready for him.

"I'm afraid I come bearing ill news," he said, and instantly Brynne and Brytta fell silent. Fastred looked up and watched in grave attention, switching his gaze from his mother to his sister to the man who had entered and then back to his mother again, examining each reaction that the individuals made.


	2. Chapter 2

**Rohan, West Emnet, February 25**

**Chapter Two: Change**

"Prince Theodred is dead."

The words fell to the floor with the heart of Brynne. She knew what such words meant, and could barely keep the torrent of worry and despair from appearing on her face. Struggling to remain unshaken, she chose her question carefully.

"How?"

"Orcs attacked, and he was brought home badly wounded."

The words were what she had hoped she would not hear. If orcs had killed their king's son, soon others would die as well. It was only a matter of time.

"Why did they kill him?" Brytta asked, her seven-year old voice disrupting the silence. Leofwine looked down to her. She had never seen the prince, but everyone down to the last child able to listen had heard of him.

"Because they are very bad." He glanced up at Brynne, then back to the girl and hoped what he had to say next would not alarm her too greatly. "If you ever see one, I want you to hide from them as fast as you can, and when you are certain that you will not be seen, I want you to tell the nearest person at the nearest hold."

Brytta's eyes were round as buttons, and she surprised him by asked sweetly with a curious smile, "What do they look like?"

"Hush!" Brynne exclaimed, shocked by her daughter's interest in such gruesome matters. Orcs were not to be the things that fascinated little girls. Flowers would do just fine for her daughter. But it was too late, for Brytta was already listening enraptured by Leofwine's hurried description. Fastred watched the man as Leofwine made cruel faces and barred his teeth. Whatever had happened, Fastred decided, it was not good, and was probably something to do with the same thing that had everyone in the holds worried these days. Everyone had been whispering of something that made them frown. Some of the boys, when at the last meal they had shared together, had made similar faces as the one Master Leofwine was making to his sister now.

"They have bars of iron over their eyes or noses, some of them do. They're battle scars. And they carry sharp swords that are just as sharp as their teeth. They ride wargs. Do you know what wargs are?" Leofwine asked Brytta. She shook her head while her tightening knuckles started to wrinkle the page she held in her hand. "Well, wargs are like wolves, only bigger and meaner. They'll tear a person in two and these orcs ride them like horses. They jump and turn and claw and bite and kill all at the same time."

Leofwine stopped as Brynne sent him a cold stare. Quickly deciding to change the topic to one that might not anger the girl's mother as much, Leofwine asked Brytta, "What is that picture you've got there?"

"It's one Fastred drew for me. He made me flowers."

"Really? Fastred, you drew this?" Leofwine asked as he inspected the sketch.

Fastred met his eyes and cocked his head. Brytta, understanding his silent question, pointed to the drawing and made a scribbling motion with one hand, and then as Fastred smiled in affirmation, she answered, "Yes, he did."

"Let him answer for himself," Leofwine chided. Brytta stared at him.

"How?"

"What do you mean, how? Let him speak for himself, he's certainly intelligent enough," Leofwine said, an amused smile emerging on his face. He did not notice the flickering in Brynne's eyes until she placed her hand on his shoulder and asked,

"How many more holds must you bring the message to, Master Leofwine?"

The warning tone of her voice was obvious to him.

Stiffly, he answered, "Three." His face had turned to a darker shade.

"Shall I accompany you to your horse?"

Brytta was about to ask if she could go too, but her mother gave her a sharp look that said she must stay inside this time. Fastred was back to the last of his second serving of soup, and did not notice that the two left the room until the door banged shut behind them causing the frame to tremble slightly.

Once outside and away from the eager ears that listened inside, Brynne faced Leofwine. Her hands fidgeted and she set her jaw.

"Mistress," Leofwine began. "I do not know what I said to offend you or embarrass your daughter, but I assure you that no ill will was intended. I have three more holds to bring my message to, and as you have reminded me of it, I must hurry as fast as I can. I am lingered here too long already."

"Prince Theodred is dead, and they will find out soon enough." Her voice was low, and he wondered if it was the grief over the news he brought, worry such as that of his own wife, or some other agitation that he could not comprehend.

"Fastred is deaf. He does not – cannot - speak for himself My daughter relays messages for him such as asking him if he drew the picture when you asked him. She takes it as her duty, and he indulges her."

"Indulges?"

"He could have surmised that you were asking of the picture without her help, but it brings her pleasure to be of help, and it makes communication easier for him," she explained. "They use hand movements and tend to talk with their eyes." Leofwine watched the expression on her face as she continued. "He is my son. Please do not ask questions that will make my daughter see him as anything but her older brother. He cannot do all that the other boys his age can – but he can do other things, and I want her to see the good he can do, not the things he cannot. There are enough people deeming him stupid as it is. Thankfully even those who are otherwise heartless have managed to keep their remarks behind their teeth when Brytta is near."

With one hand on the reigns of his horse, Leofwine asked over his shoulder as he mounted, "Only because she is young. Will she let him know to hide if there are orcs nearby?"

Brynne's voice fell down from the tone she used in defending her son to a softer one that was heavy with worry. "Yes. Though I pray it is useless information."

"Aye, we all do. My apologies, Mistress Brynne," he answered, before clicking to the stallion and turning towards the north where the next hold lay. The news of the prince's sudden death would spread as wildfire over dry grass soon enough, she had been correct. But better to have the truth told than have exaggerations spread of orcs pillaging holds already. It was best to keep the people worrying as little as possible. The time would come for more worry soon enough.

On into the charcoal night Leofwine and his stallion road, on towards the next hold.

They never reached it, and for a long time only the paper stars mourned his fate.

"_Modor!_" Brytta shrieked near to hysterics as she raced through the door of their home. "_Modor!_" she yelled again.

When Brynne saw the ashen color of her daughter's face, she knelt down to Brytta's eye level. The girl trembled and her eyes were wide with fright, and she looked as though any minute she would fly out of her skin in panic. She opened her mouth to speak, but at first she could only sputter. She reminded Brynne of a skittery bird with a broken wing, petrified. Gently she folded her daughter into an embrace, hoping that doing so would both calm her and help her to find her voice again. Something was very wrong, Brytta had never acted this way before, not even when she had been astride Hwesta when the mare spooked in the field at the sight of a fox. Even then, the girl had kept calm while on the horse, and only later once she was safely inside did she show any fear. And that fear had been of such that she was proud of. "I was very scared, but I didn't think about being scared!" Brytta had said that evening back in late summer, the one last few days _Wedmath_ as Brynne recalled. Now, the girl whose shoulders were still shaking in Brynne's arms was scared, and was very much thinking about the source of her fear, and of being scared.

"I, I saw," Brytta began, and then took a deep breath, composing herself as she had seen her mother do when Brynne had first learned of Prince Theored's death the previous night. Her mother had only barely let Brytta and Fastred see the panic that had flickered on her face before she had veiled it, but Brytta guessed that her mother had been very scared. Now she was scared. It had been so awful! "He was dead, a spear straight through him," she said, her voice barely above a faint whisper.

Brynne felt the blood in her body run cold. Who was dead? Her own Dunhére had gone nearly seven days ago to stay with his brother several holds away to the west, where he had hoped to acquire a horse to teach Fastred on. The boy deserved to ride something better than old Hwesta, he had said before he left. It could not be him who Brytta had come across as she was out with the mare. It couldn't be! Brynne could feel her heart beating up towards her throat, threatening to pound out. Struggling to maintain her calm so that she would not give her daughter any more reason to be more terrified than she already was, Brynne asked,

"Who was it you saw?" Silently she pleaded, _'please, not him. It can not! It must not.'_

Again Brytta swallowed and breathed slowly.

"Tell me what you saw," Brynne prodded. She had to know, she could not bear the waiting any longer. If she had to wait any longer she feared her heart would end up on her tongue and that she would die with the tension.

"Master Leofwine. There were crows, lots of crows, and they were all eating him, _modor_. They were eating him, and his horse!" Brytta squeezed her eyes shut at the memory.

Brynne let a small sigh of relief escape her lips, and then instantly regretted it with shame. How could she feel relieved that a good man had been killed? And now poor Hasuwyn, a widow. Her heart sank. Did Hasuwyn know yet, Brynne wondered, suddenly realizing that if Brytta had found the man dead, it was to be assumed that no one else had yet. Surely no one who would come across such a thing would leave it to the crows. The thought of what her daughter had discovered made her feel ill.

She looked up, suddenly aware of Fastred staring at her on her knees holding Brytta, and Brytta who was beginning to calm down, although she was clearly red-faced from both running from the horse pasture to the house and panicked tears.

He walked nearer, observing both of them, then gave a pointed look towards the door.

At first, Brynne could see nothing, but as she pulled away from her daughter to walk closer to one of the windows, a thin gasp of air escaped her lips. There, billowing off in the distance over a curve of land, was a dark ribbon of smoke. It was faint and the wind was spreading it into the air to make it even harder to detect at first, but it was there. She would not have noticed it as quickly if Fastred had not made it known.

"What is it?" Brytta asked, rubbing at her eyes and then wiping her hand under her nose.

"Shh," was Brynne's only reply as she continued to stare out over the plains. Outside, she could see Hwesta pacing uneasily.

Fastred watched the horse's movements as well, noticing the mare's flared nostrils and laid back ears. He also watched the smoke as it rose in the thicker stream into the air and then disappeared into the wind. Something was very wrong, that much he knew with clarity. A touch to his arm caused him to turn and there stood Brytta, with fear and curiosity warring back and forth on her freckled face. No, he decided as he looked at her. She had been freckled in the summer, but now she looked paler, more icy than she had before. And now as her eyes grew wider and her face turned paler, the freckles were barely visible at all. Yes. Something was very, very wrong.

Through the smoke, he could suddenly see that there was something moving – no, many things moving, beating fast and wildly. The figures moved with the thick smoke near the rise of the land, so he could not tell at first what they were. Yet as they rose to the thinner smoke, he was able to recognize the black wings of crows. There were many of them, more than a hundred, perhaps several hundred. Unlike the Starlings that often made themselves at home near the barn and the grain there, no sunlight played off of the wings of these birds. They were black, so much so that it looked as though they were simply holes in the sky and not living things at all.

Brynne backed away from the window although she kept her eyes still trained outside. The smoke was coming from Hasuwyn's hold. The desire to aid her neighbor and kinswoman struggled with the fear of what could lie underneath the rise of earth that barred her view. Could there be a band of orcs, the same sort that had killed Prince Theodred, or could it be the smoke of an accident, a kicked lantern in the stable that spread to the grass? If it was an accident, then it would be terrible to sit at home and to do nothing. Yet if danger hid beyond, then it would be folly to go head onward into it. No, she could not entertain the notion that everything was ill news. Just because Leofwine had met with his doom did not mean that the smoke could only mean destruction. She had seen similar billowing when the boys had dropped a candle in that grass during Yule at a gathering feast. How it had billowed against the night sky, barely visible and yet acutely stark against the myriad of silver stars that had been out that evening. Life had been better that evening, back before the fear that now pulsed through her body had made its home in her mind and soul.

No, she could not let Hasuwyn's hold burn if it was something that could be helped. Yet what could she do? Leave her children and go herself, or send them by themselves, or go together and leave their house in hopes that it would be safe from harm? But if it was dangerous, she feared the safety of her home would be the least of her worries. With that thought in her mind, the decision was easy.

"Brytta, I want you to get Hwesta from the field. Stay low to the ground and be sure not to make any noise. Let Fastred saddle her for you since he is faster, and then come and tell me when you are ready to go to Mistress Hasuwyn's hold."

Fastred nodded his head, understanding the urgency in her eyes and the tightening lines on his mother's forehead. Both children ran to the door, foregoing hats as they grabbed for coats instead. If Brynne noticed they had left the hats, she said nothing.

Once outside, the air was strikingly cold as it ripped through their sleeves and wound itself around their fingers and burned their eyelids. Hwesta's eyes showed the whites and her ears were still laid flat, her flanks quivering in tight muscled fear. Brytta waited until Fastred appeared from the stable carrying the saddle and bridle.

The metal on the bit was cold and stung his fingers, turning the tips a bright crimson, and shielding his eyes from the wind as much as possible, Fastred bent his head down and walked towards his sister near the fidgeting mare. At first she backed from his touch, nearly knocking the bridle from his hands at first. She was not usually like this at all – it had always been easy to catch her in the field before, she had never danced in the tight backwards steps that she used now. Tossing her head, she continued to look back and forth between the crows swirling nearer in the sky, the smoke coming from the hill, and the bit in Fastred's hands.

Brytta made a move as if to help calm the mare, but Fastred shot her an urgent look over his shoulder as he sensed her intent. The last thing he needed was a girl her size getting in the way of Hwesta's hooves if the mare became more frantic.

Again he advanced towards the mare, one hand holding the bridle, the other outstretched towards her muzzle. Her eyes still flicked back and forth, but for several seconds she stood still and the tips of his fingers grazed her whiskers. Just another step and he would be able to get her, just one more step if she would just stand still. He knew the crows were terrifying, with their sharp wings etched against the sky. Just another step. He was so close that he could feel the warm breath that she snorted at him towards his face. It felt good against the cold wind that was stinging every inch of his face.

A hand shook his coat sleeve wildly, and he whirled. At the movement, all pretense of standing still left Hwesta, and she charged past the two children in a flurry of shaggy chestnut coat and darker brown tail and pounding hooves that shook the earth they stood on. Fastred was about to glare at his sister, but followed her other hand to where it pointed to the sharp points of something that were beginning to show over the land's ridge. The crows were circling closer, nearly overhead, and their shadows fells across the field in scattered dancing blotches. The sharp points moved higher, revealing larger forms marching as well, up over the hill. At once it became clear that the sharp things were spears, and the figures beneath, with their jagged steps and dark armor, were the orcs Master Leofwine had warned about three nights before. Brytta's expression was enough to confirm that, and both children stood rooted to the earth.

Fastred assessed the situation. If he ran after Hwesta, he would be seen, or at least he guessed that he would, for if he could see them, he assumed they could be seen by them. They ran to the house where their mother waited, they would be warm and safe. Unless the orcs did what he feared they had done to Mistress Hasuwyn's hold beyond the hill. If they stayed where they were, there in the field, they would surely be seen as soon as the ragged company came near enough to trample them.

He turned his head as afar as he could in all directions. There were no trees near their hold, and none had magically sprung up to aid them overnight. They could only hide in the tall grass that blew, and because of the dark spun clothing of brown and dark green, hiding in the pale yellow dead winter grass would not be easy. His eyes went again to the house, but in despair he knew as much as he wanted to run there and be enfolded in the warmth and comfort of his home, he could not risk such an action. Brytta still clutched at his coat's sleeve, and he knew he could not panic for it would only cause her to panic, or worse, cry. The figures were drawing nearer, and again he looked with longing towards the home that stood so close, and yet was a hopeless refuge. And then his eyes strayed to the stable behind the house. If they could reach it, then perhaps they would have a chance. It was a small chance, he knew, but if they burned the house, then perhaps they would leave the stable. If they looked and saw that that one horse who would stay in the stable had run across the field, it would be worthless to burn the stable. There would be no reason for it. There couldn't be!

Without a second to spare, Fastred grabbed his sisters hand and pulled her to the ground. Their chance for running headlong towards anything was long gone, as that would catch the attention of the band of orcs. But if they crawled, well, that might work. Forcing himself not to lay himself open to the despair and frantic fear that pounded in his veins, Fastred pointed to the stable and began to crawl on his knees towards it while keeping his head hunched down as low as possible to the ground. This, he realized, not only kept him as invisible as possible, but he could feel the pounding of their footsteps in the dirt as they grew closer and closer. Behind him, Brytta stifled a hiss of pain as her knee landed squarely on a sharp stone.

The thicker stems of grass whipped into their eyes and scratched against the palms of their hands. The band of orcs was even nearer now, close enough that both children could listen to the grated, guttural conversation that went back and forth between individuals. Sickly, Fastred remembered the faces the other boys of the nearby hold had made If only they had known how right they were in what the orcs looked like, with the sharp teeth and the iron helmets that reflected light in splintering shafts onto the ground. He grimaced. He could smell the dirty leather of their jerkins with a headache-inducing clarity.

"Ouch!" Brytta exclaimed, unable to stop herself as the same knee that had landed on the stone before landed on a horseshoe nail. She grasped the heel of his boot, causing him to turn to see what was wrong. She wriggled backwards to pick up the nail and showed it to him while holding onto the aching knee with her other hand. Fastred realized the nail as the one that had gone missing from Hwesta's shoe, the shoe he had mended not a day before. So that's where the missing nail had ended up. Looking back at Brytta, he took in her squinched eyes and the purpling red mark on her knee around the spot where the nail had entered her skin. There was not a lot of blood, but she was a girl, and small tears were already prickling the corners of her eyes, threatening to give way to a flood. But she mustn't do that, not now, when they were so close to the stable!

The movement on the ground stopped. Fastred's heart skipped a beat. Was it already too late, had they heard her, had she cried out and he didn't know it? How loud were they being? The youth did the only thing he could think of. He flattened himself to the ground, and hoped that Brytta did the same behind him in the grass. He nearly forgot to breathe as he felt footsteps pounding into the ground, harder and harder, surely nearer and nearer. No longer could he look out through the thinner tips of grass, now all he could see were the thick roots near the earth. It smelled of dried dirt, a cold wintery smell that reminded him of wet wool and the feel of cold iron. Gone was the lush smell of new grass, gone was the smell of new spring birth. It was just cold and dead, void of anything except memory and hope for spring to come again. But the winter smell was comfortably in its own way, the same way being scolded by his mother in their house was still comfortable because it was in their house, and no matter what he ever thought would happen, he always thought it would be there as a beacon of warmth. The winter smell of earth was still part of his home.

The footsteps stopped.

His heart stood still. They must be very close, he could almost make out the breaths that went in and out through the crude helmet, the rough air meeting the cold and surely showing in ugly white puffs.

The earth smelled good. It would be good to die on his own hold's land, if that were to happen. He would smell the earth he'd always known, and it smelled good now. Wintery, but familiar. He shut his eyes tight, not wanting to look up in fear of the fanged face he imagined would be leering down on him, spear in hand. His back was to Brytta, and he dared not look back to her. Perhaps she was already dead, and not hearing it was a blessing. Perhaps his death would come swiftly and he would not even know it until it was too late to realize it. Oh, if only he would be so lucky, he thought bitterly to himself. There could be no nope now, not with the footsteps being still for so long, surely they had been seen. He cringed inwardly. The moment would come soon enough and then it would be over. And he had not finished his drawing of Hwesta. He resisted the urge to move his hand to his pocket to where he knew the drawing waited in vain to be completed, but how he wished he could touch it as a talisman. He would never finish it now, and it would surely be torn apart by the waiting crows. How he wished he could have finished it.

He felt the footsteps on the ground again and for another agonizing second he expected to feel the searing tip of a spear strike through his back. Yet instead the footsteps became more faint. He and Brytta hadn't been seen? The idea that they had made it safely out of sight was too much to hope for, and so he still lay as close to the ground as he could, looking out of the corner of his eye to confirm that yes, Brytta was still behind him and, aside from the pink, cold look on her face, was reasonably fine.

Yet the shadows of the crows still flickered over the grass, and although the footsteps were further away, they were still discernable to his touch to the earth. They were close, but not as close as they had been when first they had begun to come towards them. If they were going to get to the relative safety of the barn, they did not have a long time to stay in the open field before the orcs went – though he prayed they would not – towards the house. It was a chance they were going to have to take, but he made the decision not to wait any longer and to make for the barn as quickly as they could the way they had been before they had pressed their faces to the ground.

He moved one foot, realizing that it had fallen asleep and was not tingling in a prickly way that made him have to restrain himself from wiggling it too much. Doing that would surely cause the footsteps to come back towards them. And the crows had surely seen them already, that much he felt in his gut. The only hope he had was that the orcs could not speak to the crows, and so could only guess what the crows were trying to point out to them.

Foot by foot the two crept through the grass, palm in front of palm, and Brytta no longer tugged at his heel, and so he assumed she was simply biting her lip against the pain in her knee. Soon the grass became shorter to where it had been trampled down by the coming and going of feet to and from the barn. They were almost there, they were so close that Fastred could almost taste it. The smell of hay met his nostrils with its sweet familiarity. Just a little closer and they would be there.

He made one final crawling leap inside the door, and Brytta following inches behind him, and for the first time he allowed himself to take a deep gulp of air. The shadows that fell inside the barn were dark and he knew they could not be seen inside, but still he motioned for her to follow him to the back of the barn and to the stairs that were there to the hay loft. Hiding in Hwesta's stall would not do much good if the orcs came in looking for any horses to steal – did they ride horses, he wondered, as he had not seen any in their company – then they would be spotted quickly, and that would be the end of everything. But if they hid in the loft, Fastred hoped their chances for outliving the day would increase by at least a little.

Brytta winced as she put her weight on the knee where the blood had stopped dribbling. Fastred, having gone up ahead of his sister, reached down a hand as far as he could, and after several more attempts, caught her hand and helped pull her up as best as he could. Once they were up near the mounds of hay, Fastred flopped backwards into the nearest pile. He had to have a moment to think, to grasp the situation, to not think about what might be going on outside that he could not hear. It was the not knowing that was nearly driving him mad. Now that he was in the loft, he could no longer put his fingers to the ground to feel the vibrations of feet. The only thing he could sense was when Brytta moved. Now Brytta would have to be the ears for both of them. He could do no more about that.

He moved to the boards of the wall and peered out through a knothole in the wood to the band of orcs outside. Now that he could get a better view, his heart plummeted to his shoes. They did not ride horses, that much was confirmed for him as he looked out across their company. Instead he saw several of them mounted on large, shaggy beasts that appeared as large wolves. Their noses were less pointed, and the orcs that were astride them looked as though the animals were controlling them more than they were controlling the animals. An involuntary shiver ran down his spine. The pairs lurched as they walked and rode nearer and nearer to the house, and now he could easily make out the crude banners that whipped in the gusts of bitter wind. A white hand had been painted on them and the helmets of the orcs as well. It was ugly, not at all like the white horse on the banner of Rohan that conjured up thoughts of honor and victory. This hand only caused fear to surge throughout his body. Beside him, Brytta shouldered her way to look through the knothole as well, and she let a small gasp of air escape through her lips into Fastred's cheek.

They had come to the front of the house, and both children both did not want to look, yet could not close their eyes for the desire to know what was to happen. Neither had seen if their mother had left the house or not when they had crawled towards the barn, and now Fastred felt a surge of hope that perhaps she had escaped to the barn as well and was hiding somewhere in there with them. Perhaps she was perfectly fine and they worried for nothing, that all they would lose would be the house. The house could be replaced. She would be so sad to see heirlooms burn – mother would cry when grandmother's quilt was torched, he knew – but if they were all right, if she was safe, then all would be well in the end. He could hope. He had to hope.

Brytta shrank back away from the window, covering her ears. It hurt to hear the gnarled voices outside with their words that hurt her ears like the scraping of a knife over a plate. She did not want to hear them. Fastred was the lucky one. He could stare out impassively without hearing the howls and throaty grunts of the wolf-creatures. They must be wargs, she thought to herself, remembering the description Master Leofwine had given her. He had been right, they were scary! But she didn't want to look at them anymore, she couldn't bear it. And so she backed away and nestled herself into a small ball with her hands wrapped around her knees in the hay. It smelled so good, so sweet. She snuggled deeper, hoping it would prevent her from hearing what went on beyond the walls, and she covered her ears for good measure. She did not want to hear it. She wanted her mother. A warmth met her hand, and almost smiling, Brytta let her fingers trail over the fur of the barn cat that had been sleeping in the hay. If she could stay here, everything would be all right, she thought to herself. Everything would be fine. Under her hand, the cat stretched and let a purr sound in its throat. If she could just fall asleep here, with the cat and the hay, she would wake up and everything would be back to normal, and Fastred could finish his drawing…

A hand pulled her by the shoulder, startling her so that her breath caught in her throat and causing her body to jerk suddenly. Hay fell down in front of her eyes and into her lap from where it had been settled behind and around her body. Brushing away the hay with a shaking hand, she let her breath out as she did not find herself staring into the deep eyes of one of the orcs outside, or worse one of the warg creatures. Instead Fastred had crouched infront of her, and with one hand he pointed to her ears.

Instantly, she knew what he wanted to know. He desired to hear what was going on. But how could she tell him without bursting into tears?

A howl came from outside and sent shivers down her spine.

Gently, Fastred pulled her upwards until she was no longer curled with her hands over her ears, and was instead on her knees looking back out the knot in the wood where she had been before. She sighed. She would have to tell him, she knew he would not let her ignore him now. She had to tell him what was going on. It was, no matter how much she disliked it, important.

With one finger, she led his eyes to the wargs, then caught his eye and barred her teeth in imitation of the growls that the beasts were making. She stopped and leaned her nose against the wood, watching with horror as the door to the house was bashed through. There would be no more interpreting of sounds for the moment as both children watched in gritted silence.

Even if Fastred had been able to hear what followed, he would not have comprehended much more than Brytta did. She did not hear any cry from the house. Did not hear the crackling of flames as they caught the thatched roof that father had spent so long fixing after the storms that had come during the summer. Did not hear Hwesta's terrified whinny at the orange tongues of fire that caught in the grass after bright sparks flew down with the wind. The smell of smoke drifted through the cracks in the barn's walls, but she only barely noticed it at all except to cough – and even then, she did not hear herself. There was only a brittle ringing in her ears. She felt dizzy.

Maybe, Brytta thought, the house was empty, and mother had gotten out. She did not realize Fastred had held the same hope, and did not know that it was slipping away as he watched.


	3. Chapter 3

**Rohan, West Emnet**

**February 26 (Appendix B: "Breaking of the Fellowship. Death of Boromir; his horn is heard in Minas Tirith. Meriadoc and Peregrin captured. Frodo and Samwise enter the eastern Emyn Muil. Aragorn sets out in pursuit of the Orcs at evening. Eomer hears of the decent of the Orc-band from Emyn Muil.")**

**Chapter Three: Leave-taking**

Fastred awoke with a start, slamming his forehead into the wood wall it had been resting against in the process. The cold fingers that firmly gripped his shoulder were hard and bony. How long had he been sleeping, where was he, what was going on? And now his head was throbbing, it was hard to think, it hurt to think.

Then the smell of old smoke met his senses and in an instant he became dully aware of everything. But it still did not explain the unfamiliar fingers that tightened even as he recovered from his jolted awakening. A pang of terror caused him to yank his body around to get a better look of the intruder.

The young man looked no more than twenty. His eyes were a smoldering blue, not light, not dark, as ordinary as Fastred could think of, but seething with a cold flame that the youth quickly found himself inwardly identifying with. Was it a calm fury that shone there, glinting like the eyes of a cat? Fastred would have pondered on them longer, but the man's lips moved, and he struggled to understand what was being said.

It was no use, the man talked too fast, his head tilting while he spoke in the direction of the house, so that Fastred could not watch the words as they met the air. The dark blonde hair that flipped and curled at his neck as he turned his head was tangled and matted from obvious neglect, and soot had smudged itself in with the dirt that was evident.

Where she had fallen asleep in the hay, Brytta yawned and started to nestle down further before her sapphire eyes snapped open in shock. The grey cat that had snuggled underneath the crook of one of her arms yowled as she accidentally knocked it with her elbow in her distress.

As she gasped at the sight of the newcomer, Brytta gulped, "Who're you?"

Turning toward the little girl's voice, the man gave her what looked to be his best attempt at a smile. "Fyren, madam, and you'd best tell me who you are that you haven't been burned alive like the rest of 'em. Some wee magic princess, eh? And you," Fyren turned to Fastred. "You'd be the princeling of the hold? Hid up 'ere, told the servants to release the horses as a diversion, and when the orcs come upon the servants, the beasts don't think a young boy could be the master of such an idea, so they think they've killed 'em all, eh?"

Brytta stared at him from the hay and caught Fastred's eye. The two shared bemused expressions, Fastred's nearly equal to Brytta.

"I'm not a princess. He's not a prince. You talk funny." Brytta sniffled, then sneezed, wiped her coat sleeve under her nose. I want my modor." She didn't want to cry and look like an infant, but she felt that she would at any moment.

As if he hadn't noticed her distress, or, Fastred wondered, he was simply ignoring it, Fyren held down a brisk hand to pull the girl up from her makeshift bed. Once she was standing, he looked down and scratched the fuzz that was growing on his chin. Fastred decided the man was younger than twenty now that he had turned again towards the wall where the light of day shone through the cracks towards their faces. Maybe it was the bony fingers that made him seem older.

After a moment of silence as he sized up both children, Fyren looked down a thin nose to Brytta. With a tilt of his head in Fastred's direction, he asked, "Does he talk, or is he just shy?"

"Not shy. Just can't hear. Modor said it was because he was given good eyes, so to compensate he didn't have as good hearing. Where's modor?" Brytta replied.

"If your mother's here, she hasn't out yet to tell us, so how about comin' with me, hey?" Fyren countered.

Brytta frowned. "She'll come out once we tell her it's safe. We just have to find her." To her, the words offered a small ray of sunshine, the reminder that of course mother was fine. She had to be. She was modor. It was as simple as that.

Fyren knelt down to the girl's eye level, wary of the stare that the boy kept trained on him. "Look, if you want to be safe, you come with me. If you want to stay here and wait for no one, that's fine, but when I'm off riding one way and you get hungry, I don't want to see your sorry faces runnin' after me when I've got my heart set on a bigger serving of food than I'd have had if you came along in the first place. You come now, or not at all, but I'm tellin' you outright it's cold, and that hay is gonna look nicer and nicer to eat the longer you stay here."

A hand shot between Fyren and Brytta, startling both enough so that each jerked their heads back to avoid it. It belonged to Fastred, and with his eyes on Brytta, asked with a point of his finger, 'who is he?'.

Brytta twisted her face in confusion. Who was he, anyway?

"Fyren, my brother wants to know what you're doing in our barn on our land."

Her voice took on an authoritative tone it had not carried when she spoke for herself. Her eyes too, now that she spoke for her older brother, took on his age, lost some of their naïve assumptions. Looking at her, Fyren knew the boy did not hold the same hopes as the girl.

"Two holds down is where I come from, the herder was my father, but he and the others, I don't think they made it through the raid. I went to let Wintra – that's me horse below if you can see 'im – free , cause he's my friend and all and I wanted to give 'im a chance at least. Done got meself away in the process, saved my own hide at least, hey? So I come up to Master Leofwine's hold and see the place nearly done burning and the horses nearly all gone, and the people, what's left of 'em, well the crows'll finish that up."

He stopped, aware of the girl's pale face. He hadn't meant to make her ill, and yet she appeared ready to vomit.

"Look, I'm safe, and going someplace safer, so if you'd rather not freeze or starve to death, I say come on with me. Not everyone's gonna take a girl and a deaf boy along with 'em, so if I were you, I'd take what I could get. Was what I was doin' when I came in here, looking for some hay to sleep in, and there you were, already there. And I 'talk funny' 'cause in the herders, you aren't around proper folk often enough t' care. You say what needs sayin' in whatever way it needs to be said. This was our way, if y' please, your highness."

Brytta gave an involuntary shiver.

"See now, you're cold already. Your brother too, I 'spect." Fyren and Fastred exchanged glances. Yes, indeed all three individuals were cold, with both children turning light shades of violet.

Yet when Fyren began to climb down the ladder, expecting the two to follow, they did not. Instead, Fastred stared at him through cold eyes, while Brytta only shook her head in what Fyren could not pinpoint as either sadness, a dull realization, or denial.

"Where's _modor_?" her voice asked. Fyren stopped climbing down the ladder. What could he do? Show her the burned-out home? The places where grass once grew? The deep marks that the orcs had left when their feet dug into the ground, and where their wargs had walked? If their mother had survived, she was not here – he had already been around the rest of the hold in hopes of finding anything salvageable, and had come across nothing. If their mother was dead – what he expected, from what he had found at Hasuwyn's hold – then that was that. All of these things Fyren logically knew he could tell the girl. But as he looked at her, there seemed to be no kind way to explain. She sniffled again.

Abruptly, Fastred intervened again, placing his hand on his sister's shoulder and meeting Fyren's eyes. Although the lad did not say anything - could not, Fyren reminded himself – the truth was passed between them in a simple nod of a head and the stiffening of a chin.

"Ow!" Brytta complained as she looked up and scowled at her brother, pushing his hand away from where it had gripped and his fingernails had unwittingly dug into her skin. "Why do you have to do that?" she muttered, although she knew perfectly well he could not hear the words, and because she was sitting and he was standing, he could not see her mouth form the words.

How mother had worked to let him be able to know what they were saying when they spoke. She would hold up his hat and say the word over and over, getting Fastred to memorize the way her mouth moved when she said the word that meant he should put on his hat. And still he mixed up words that looked the same – and there were so many that were nearly identical! There were so many things to memorize, and she couldn't imagine what it was like to memorize them without knowing what they sounded like. And yet the boys of the hold were always calling him "_toidi"_ whenever mother hadn't been watching. How she had hated them when they said so. How she had wanted to pummel them and knock them to the ground, how she wanted to hurt them when they said such things. She hated them. She hated the orcs too. And the wargs and the fire and the cold. Where was mother?

There had only been one time she could ever remember when she had been glad mother was not around. Only once…

"He's not!" she had screeched. She planted her fists at her sides and glared as meanly as she could at Bregdon, hoping her eyes were snapping as much fire as she imagined they were. He grinned, showing the chip on one of his front teeth that had gotten there during the last fight he had gotten into with one of the other boys. Everyone knew about it and the trouble he had gotten into because of it. But the trouble didn't seem to mind the boy a bit – he loved the attention it had earned him, and now he felt like strutting a little.

"Is too, can't even say his own name, an' he's older than me." His voice held the obvious tantalizing tone that to Brytta was just begging to be punched for.

"He can't, because he can't hear, so how could he say words if he didn't know what they sound like? Are you that stupid not to understand that?" she countered.

"Oh, using such fancy language there little miss Brytta, aren't you?"

She sniffed. "I use the words that suit me."

"For a six-year-old, I'd watch what I said if I were you."

"Almost seven," she countered. He laughed.

"I'm nine, that's a big difference. You probably wouldn't know your name if people didn't tell it to you all the time. Just like Fastred, can't think right."

"He can too! He's – he's smarter than you'll ever be, he can draw pictures that look better than real!"

Bregdon threw back his head to let a laugh bellow out. "Pictures! He can draw pictures! Better than real, what's that 'sposed to mean, better 'an real?"

"It's better than what you see with your eyes, it's like you imagine things could be."

"Well, why doesn't he just imagine hearing things then, imagine talking about 'em?"

Before the last word was fully formed, Bregdon found himself the target for the blonde whirlwind that raced at him, tumbled knotted-fists-first into his middle. He knew he had made her angry – it was what he had been trying to do, after all – he hadn't counted on the attack. With a grunt, she sent him backwards a step, almost knocking the wind out of him. For someone that little, she was a catty thing as she began clawing at him as he fought back to knock her away from him and onto the ground. It didn't take long for him to shove her away, because as surprised at the outburst as he had been, she was still considerably shorter and more wiry than he. She stumbled backwards as he retaliated, but quickly regained her initial blaze of anger and again raged towards the older boy. What she held over him in agility he made up for in strength, however. Although she gave one more punch towards him – those knuckles were small but hard, he thought – she soon found herself pushed heavily to the dirt.

"Face it, you can't beat me up, you're too little," Bregdon said, his eyes showing off the pride he felt. She sneered up at him from where she still sat, crossing her arms across her dusty chest.

"I'm a little girl who's younger than you, and look, you're bruising." She grinned with smug satisfaction.

"That green horse – Syrcan – bit me, that's what everyone'll think," he countered, lowering his chin. "I'll make sure that's what they think."

"They might think it, but I'll know. My brother'll know." She unfolded her arms and wiped her hands against each other with a dainty precision.

"And you'll be the only one who'll be able to tell anyone about it. And you won't." His voice held the dripping warning that he wanted to make her fear. Her eyes sparked at his words – how he did love to see them jump and blaze like that when she was mad, it was so much fun to rile her – but then she let an impassive curtain fall over them.

"Yes, I suppose I will be the only one." Her voice was high as if she were composing a nursery tune. "But then, no one would believe you got bruised by me, would they, so to everyone it would be just a silly tale. I don't see how telling it could hurt you." Inwardly she was amused by herself, but outwardly she let only a small gleam of her thoughts glimmer through her eyes. Bregdon's shoulders tightened, but on his face he let only a calm seething look appear.

"You won't tell them."

"Well, I'm sure you hope I won't," Brytta smiled enigmatically.

She stood and walked away, not once looking over her shoulder. She had won. She knew she had. And how she had secretly enjoyed watching his forearm turn a dull purple as he had argued with her after she had fought. It had been very satisfying.

Brytta had always yearned to tell her mother the story of the day she and Bregdon had fought over Fastred's honor, as Brytta had seen it. And yet she never had. Perhaps it was because she enjoyed the delicious secret nature of it that she didn't want to let anyone else taste. Secrets were always better when they were untold. So much more delicious when one thought about them all alone, like an orange at Yule, a treat to be peeled away and savored over and over again, all alone. Or maybe it was because Brytta knew her mother would not aprove of the way she had handled the situation. Mother would have said that Brytta should have talked about their differences and come to an agreement about not hurting Fastred's honor in the holds. Mother would have not liked to have heard that her daughter had attacked an older boy and had bruised his arm and made it all purple. She wouldn't have liked it at all. But although it was a valid reason for not telling, Brytta still knew in her heart that the reason she didn't tell was because she liked to think to herself of that day. If she told anyone, it would be exciting news for a day or two, and then it would wear away and it would be just another tale on the shelf. But if she kept it secret, she could relive it whenever she wanted to in the comfort of her own mind, enjoying the bits more because they were only hers and Bregdons. And she knew he had no intention of telling a soul as long as he lived.

And now, after such a long time of savoring the memory of that glorious fight, Brytta wished she could curl up on her mother's lap and tell her every detail. Of Bregdon's aghast look when she first rushed at him, of the feel of satisfactory dirt that had gotten on her dress and hands from fighting, of the anger that had burned so deep inside of her in a way she had not felt before. Was it pride? She wanted to ask her mother.

An ache she had not fully realized now began to throb in her chest. She wanted her mother. She wanted to tell her of the fight. It was as if an iron weight had been dropped in her stomach and it was hurting her so much that if she didn't breathe properly, she felt she would die. She wanted her mother.

A hand cupped her chin in her reverie, and she looked up, her lower lip trembling.

"Brytta – that's your name, right then? – no tears now, we've got to be moving and we don't want them turning into wee icicles while we're walkin' now, eh? Come on, got to hurry less you want to freeze to death out here." Fyren glanced down the wooden ladder than led down into the lower part of the barn.

Fastred grabbed a hold of his little sister's hand, and before she could protest or let a tear fall to dribble down her cheek, they were climbing downwards to where Fyren's horse waited to carry them away to…

Brytta was startled to realize she had no idea where they were going.

The thought both frightened and excited her, and at once the ache in her stomach increased as though it sensed a new burden. Would they be leaving home – or rather, what was left of it?

The three figures – one tall, lanky, with a long, almost morbidly jaunty stride, another shorter with a smooth step that made him seem as though he were gliding instead of walking, and the smallest, with her steps that told of a panic that must be going on in her mind - walked outside into the glaring daylight. Brytta and Fastred, each having been hidden inside the dark barn for hours, blinked not because of the startling sunlight, but in stunned amazement at the smoking heap that had once been their home.

With sick, growing clarity, Fastred stared. If anyone had been in the house, if they had not been able to escape, then there was no hope left.

The thought made him ill, and he was vaguely aware of his knees buckling underneath him, of his head arching towards the ground, of a rising mass in his throat as he vomited. His fingers clawed at the dry ground where once there had been winter grass, working at nothing but ash and dirt.

At any other time, he would have been ashamed to show his emotions so freely – but no such shame came to him now. Beside him, Brytta shivered and shuddered, her own breathing becoming ragged as she struggled to put together the pieces of what lay before her eyes. The smoldering remains of their house, the empty barn, her brother on his knees on the ground, and no mother there to lay a warm hand on his forehead, no one to make him feel better. No mother.

The final thought jammed itself into her heard like a spear thrust straight through. A short, choked gasp escaped her, but now the tears that had threatened for so long would not come. She worked her fists and dug her fingernails into her palms so hard that small pricks of blood appeared, yet the tears she longed to shed to ease the pulsing pain refused to fall.

Fyren stood behind both children, watching the different reactions of both. So they had not seen the full outcome of the orcs, then. This much was obvious to him. The quiet boy looked pale, but after he had vomited, the small convulsions that had first attacked his body were diminishing. He still knelt on the sooty ground, but his ashen face revealed a calm, iron sorrow, as if the initial mourning had been purged already.

Brytta's body shook, but her eyes darted as some wild bird's, and she looked nearly mad. Although Fyren had expected her to, she did not shed any tears, and this surprised him. She was young, and while he could understand Fastred's relative composure, he could not understand the girl's unless it was shock. Her tears would come far too soon enough, Fyren surmised grimly.

"Can't we go to Mistress Feallan's hold northwards?" Brytta asked with her voice as strong as she could make it while looking up at Fyren where he towered over her.

"No little mistress, iffin we go that way, we'll likely to run into the orcs, and then where'll we be then? We'd be in a right fix, that's where – no we've got to go where they've already been, down over the hill and further. I thought comin' this way would be better, but I was wrong, so back we're going to go, and you two with me."

Brytta took a deep breath and felt the hard fingers of her brother on her shoulder. They tightened, and she looked up to meet his cold stare. She was not to cry – not now, she knew from his look. It was as if someone had taken a flickering blue torch to his eyes and had set them ablaze. She had never seen them look that way, and it was not a look she would soon forget.

"What about _fæder_?" she asked, still not willing to leave unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Where was he during all of this?" Fyren replied, jerking his head towards the smoking heap of their home.

"Out buying a new horse, north. He'd be back soon, just had to travel a day or a bit more, depending."

"Well, it's now depending on that band o' orcs, so we're still going the other way – no use taking chances, and you don't want to find him like you did Master Leofwine, now do ye?"

His quick tone so empty of any emotion other than haste both frightened and enraged Brytta. Who was he to tell her not to wait for her father, to go with him, and here she felt her heart was being twisted in two and it was hurting and he wanted to hurry away! Again she felt her insides begin to pulse, and to stop it, the only thing she was able to muster out was a tumble of words.

"How do you know I found Master Leofwine and I want to wait for _fæder _and I want _modor _and I'm cold and hungry and my knee hurts and why don't you just go away." Brytta would have said more except again Fastred clenched her shoulder.

Tersely, Fyren replied, "Your footprints were all around the body and I can't think of anyone else within miles of here with feet that small. You can wait here if you want to be killed, or die of cold or starve to death. Are you coming?" He again nodded his head, this time in the direction of where his horse had been picketed and looked to Fastred. The boy answered with a short nod and gave his sister a push in Fyren's direction.

'Good, at least someone has some sense here," Fyren thought, glad to be moving on. He did not want to linger here, and he had a feeling that if they did, the girl would soon start bawling and that was something he had no intention of putting up with. There were some things that were simply too much to deal with, and a crying little girl wanting something she couldn't have was one of them. Hopefully her brother would keep her quiet, so long as he knew what quiet was.

The sky was a smudged grey color and far off the specks of black that were crows could still be seen overhead. Either there were more of them to the north or they were the same ones that had flown over before, and were nearer than Fyren would have liked them to be.

"What about Hwesta?" Brytta pleaded with chattering teeth as Fastred gave her another shove towards Fyren's horse.

"And who's Hwesta? I don't see any other 'round 'ere so I'm thinking she's not comin' with us, eh?" Everything he said sounded like a question, Brytta noticed.

"She's our horse. There's a fence way out, she couldn't have got out." She pointed as helpfully as she could in the direction she knew they were to be going in. "If we got her, we could ride her and not bother your horse."

Fyren made a short clucking sound in his throat. "I hardly think your horse is out there to be found if she ran off before that party arrived. She's more likely as not jumped the fence never t' be seen ag'in. That or speared through or taken for their own use." He gave a half-shrug to the young girl who sent him a shocked stare.

Brytta protested with her fists clenched at her sides, "Jumped the fence? She's never, she woudn't, she never has before!"

Fyren sent her the same blank look she had seen too many times already since she had met him. "And she hasn't seen orcs before either, has she?"

Brytta sent her eyes to the ground and stubbed one toe into the dirt. "No, she hadn't," she conceded.

"There then ye have it. Chances are she's out and found a fate of her own and you'd best hurry to get t' yours while ye've still a chance w' the rest o' us, eh?" He turned his back to her and lowered his head to tighten the girth of the horse.

"Hey, ho Wintra," Fyren spoke into the gelding's backwards ear. "We'll be getting ourselves out o' this place soon 'nuff, eh? Don't like the smell any more than ye do, I know, I know. Awful, tis, right nasty. And ye don't like the crows way off much either, do ye? No? Well, we'll just get our visitors up on ye and be on th' way right quickly, down away there where we were."

Brytta liked the sound of Fyren's voice much better when he murmured to the horse as he tightened straps here and there. It was a soft speech that mixed the words and ran them together like a sort of weaving. It rose and fell in odd places and she thought to herself that she rather wished they had been born into the more remote herding families, so they could talk the way he did, so smooth and ringing. It sounded lyrical, like a spoken song, like one her mother might have sung to put her to sleep at night. She had sung of elven creature who glowed like winter moonlight and who wore circlets of stars.

Again the ache swelled inside her stomach. '_No,_' she told herself. _Modor_ was not dead. She had escaped and they would find each other soon. They would find each other and be safe and happy and they would build a new home and they would find Hwesta, and _fæder _would return home safe with a new horse for Fastred to learn on , and Fastred would become a great warrior, and would draw many pictures for her of places he saw.

But Brytta would be happy with just the first part – the part she knew must be true. _Modor_ was fine. She had escaped. Brytta smiled. There would not be tears because _Modor_ was not dead. Yes, _Modor_ was safe, and that meant it was best to leave with Fyren to be safe too.

Fastred kept his eyes trained on the black specks that appeared to be drawing closer and closer overhead.

Crows. And they looked as though they were getting closer. This was affirmed for Fastred when Fyren snapped his head around to stare with a sudden panicked look in his glinting eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Rohan, West Emnet, heading South, February 26**

**Chapter 4: Rest**

"Up w' both o' ye now, quick, on up you go there," Fyren said as fast as he could, his words clipping and running together so that Brytta understood more what me meant by his action than the actual words. Strong hands abruptly swung her up into Wintra's saddle, and Fastred, to his consternation, was lifted up as well. Brytta knew how he hated being treated as a little boy, but she also knew that they must hurry, for the crows' beating wings could be distinguished now against the clouds that foretold of snow. She feared the crows, and dreaded the snow.

Fyren looked at Wintra for a long moment. The children were both slight of frame. They had to move fast – he couldn't very well get away in good time if he were running along beside them, could he? Still, with a reluctant drooping of his shoulders, Fyren knew that the saddlebag with his bedroll attached would have to go – the extra weight would not be fair to the horse, and, Fyren reasoned, they would be passing his old grounds anyway. He could surely find other blankets when they got there. He knew the herding house was likely to have been burned (he had not looked back to check, being in too much of a hurry to get out when he first heard the orcs coming) but perhaps the barn there, like this one, had been saved. There were thick horse blankets in there. The pack was expendable. Or at any rate, it _had_ to be expendable now, whether it was needed or not. With a pained grimace and deft fingers he undid the buckles that he had only moments before tightened on the saddle as well, all the while cursing the luck that had brought him here in the first place. But there was no use in it, he knew, for whether he liked it or not, the crows were nearing them and the beating of their wings could now be heard scratching at the very air. It was too late to go unnoticed by them, but perhaps if they made it far enough away, the crows would consider them trivial.

Fyren hated the sound of the leather saddle hitting the ground, but there was naught to be done about it. He was stuck with the children, and if it was a choice between them and the saddle, it had to be the saddle. And he had to go too – he had no intention of staying for the crows to take delight in, after all. He'd seen Leofwine too, and had no plans on finding out what the crows would do if they found a live person, if that was what they did with a dead one. These crows, he knew, did not fear the living the way other birds did. These were different, and crossing their path was not something in his best interest at all. He did not know if the crows were following them or someone else, but he knew it would make little difference if the winged creatures caught up with them. Even if they weren't the true quarry, they were still just as vulnerable as whoever or whatever was.

They had to hurry – Fyren knew that if they did not, they stood an even worse chance of ever seeing another place beyond that field again.

Once again, Brytta found herself hoisted upon Wintra's back, though now she clung to the gelding's mane with a tighter grasp, determined not to slip from the smooth hairs. This time, Fastred mounted by himself, and within seconds Fyren had mounted behind both children and took the reins into his rough hands. One fast clicking of his tongue urged Wintra into a quick walk to a trot to a rocking canter. If it had been another day, Brytta would have smiled and pretended to fly, for it felt so wonderful, as if they and the horse were one giant flying beast, pounding into the earth in a way that did not jolt one at all. To Brytta, they were no longer fleeing some terrifying black shroud in the sky – they were soaring, they were free in the wind, they were practically floating.

She was startled from her reverie as she felt her knees loosen and she slid to her left as Wintra switched from the canter into the gallop that Fyren was urging him into. A gasp of panic rose in Brytta's throat as she clutched at Wintra's mane, only to regain her balance when Fastred held onto her waist. There, that was better – she did not want to go tumbling now! The idea frightened her, and she grabbed at the rough mane with a new ferocity. She knew that Wintra would not feel it no matter how hard she tugged, and that gave her all the prompting she needed to hold on as tightly as she could.

The beating intensified as if a violent thundering storm was clapping down upon them. Or at least, so it seemed to Brytta as they sped on. At first she did not want to look back, did not want to see what she feared would be her fate falling down upon her, but soon she could not bear not knowing, and so turned her head up and behind them to peer over Fyren's head to the black wings. There were nearly fifty of the birds that she could see, not many to the eye, but to the terrified young ear they were a thousand. And the nearest shelter she could think of was Master Leofwine's hold, and that was miles away.

As Fyren urged Wintra on down the slope that had been the far-away hill obstructing the view from the burned home, Brytta called out over the wind and the sound of hooves and the beating wings, "But where're we going?" Her voice was small and distant, quavering so much that Fyren at first could not decide whether it had been his imagination speaking in the wind or the girl. He whipped his head around to calculate their situation with the crows, and tried to cover the mounting despair he was sure must be showing on his face.

"Where'ever there's a decent place is where we'll be headin'," he answered without meeting her eyes.

"But there's snow coming soon, what'll we do, what about them, they'll just follow us, won't they?" she insisted. Fyren suppressed the urge to tell the girl to keep quiet – at least she was not crying, he reasoned – and instead only grimaced as he answered.

"I know that. I'm findin' a place where we might be able t' hide, and it'll be a little protection from the snow that'll come, eh?"

"But where? There aren't trees for miles, and can't they see in the dark?"

The girl was certainly going to be a handful when it came to questions – though it probably would balance out the lack of questions from the boy.

"I don't know if they see in th' dark, and I'm only hopin' they can't, so we'll give it our best shot and 'ope for the best, since we haven't much of a choice, do we then?" Sensing the next question she would yell, he finished, 'I don't know if they burned everythin', so mayhap there's a woodshed or somethin' of the sort that'll do for sleepin' in for the night and snow. If we're still alive by morning – lucky if we are - then we'll set off same direction – there'll be trees nearer there, and then we'll be better off."

Fyren's grim prediction sank to the bottom of her stomach. Brytta gripped Wintra's mane tighter when Fyren mentioned the slim possibility of their still being alive come dawn. Her knuckles were bright red, and on them small white flakes fell and stayed before sliding down to Wintra's coat. It had begun to snow.

Down another hill they plunged, then forward through the churning grass that was beginning to froth like water with the snow beginning to stick to the tops.

To Fastred, the white-topped fields resembled some slanted, skewed vision of a plain of Simbelmyne. In his mind, he saw it change from a spring field full of bobbing flower heads – the refuge he had once known in better times - to one of the present, with harsh black blots of crows swooping in over the white flowers, their shadows becoming larger and larger until the snow-Simbelmyne-flowers were engulfed and swallowed by one large black shadow of wings, and over it all the grating squall of the crows could be heard. Fastred blinked, and the vision was gone, and in its place was the snow falling down in a silent rhythm to his clenched hands, and the beating of wings behind and above them.

He had dreamt of this. Indeed, he had even drawn the flowers for Brytta once, on a night so recent. Yet it seemed as it he had drawn it in another life. In his heart, there was a burning – if he had felt it in his eyes, he knew he might have cried. But he did not. He could not let himself – not here. Later, if he found time alone, he would, if the feeling remained. If it did not, then so be it.

The sky had darkened with the falling of the snow, and though they continued to ride and the crows continued their pursuit, neither party felt as though they were gaining an edge over the other. At first this trouble Fyren, but when he discovered that as he was not gaining over the crows, so they were not gaining over him, he settled into the rhythm of the ride. Eventually they had to slow, for Wintra was tiring, but as they slowed to a quick walk, Fyren noted that the crows too seemed to be tiring. They had fallen behind at last – this, he decided, would give them enough time to find the shelter he was seeking. The land was beginning to look more familiar, and later he recognized the land as the outer rim of Leofwine's hold.

The snow still fell, and their way was made harder as the cold grew more bitter, yet in his heart, Fyren hoped that the harder the snow made it to see, the harder the crows would find the task of following them. At least it might hinder them until dawn. It was a small sliver of hope, but it was enough to urge the sorry party on until Fyren pointed to a small building far ahead that stood out against the grey snow.

"There," he said, as he led the others to follow his gaze to it. "Not much, but it'll do to sleep in. So kind of them to leave it for us."

For indeed, the small woodshed had been left unburned, whether by fate – Fyren preferred the term 'destiny' for the moment, as it sounded a tad more on the cheerful side - or negligence. As fast as they could manage with their stiffened fingers, they helped secure Wintra close to the shed where there was a small bit of shelter from a small portin of overhanging roof. Fyren would have liked to see if the barn was still standing, but it would be dark soon and he had no torch with him, and if they lost their way in the snow, they would find themselves in a much worse situation than the one they were presently in. The best he could do was to use his cloak as a makeshift horse blanket and hope it would suffice.

"Not a bit more I can do, my friend," he consoled Wintra. "Ye're simply too big to fit in there w'th us."

Once inside the woodshed, the three travelers hugged their knees and looked at each other. Then they looked away. Fastred blew on his hands and Brytta followed suit, trying to thaw sore fingers. Soon Brytta was warm as she felt she would get, and she hummed softly to herself, trying to block out the fear that at any moment, the crows would alight on the roof to have their way with them.

"What're ye hummin' there?" Fyren asked as he broke a small twig from the pile of wood to his back into pieces. "You can sing a little bit so I can hear the words at least eh? Singin'll make the night pass."

Brytta's voice was still low and slight, but she raised it to a slightly higher pitch.

"_There are flowers growing upon the hill_

_like they always have before…" _

She stopped.

"I, I forget the next verse."

"It's alright, just go to the next part ye do remember," Fyren prompted.

_A/N this verse showing where the title of this fanfiction novella came from has been deleted due to policy on not quoting other writers, even if one gives them full credit for their work. Paraphrasing, it talk about a young boy riding way to war, using the phrase, "Away, fine lad, once more"._

Again Brytta halted, this time casting her eyes to the ground. "I don't remember the rest."

"Oh, come on now, yes ye do, just think hard on it an' it'll come to ye right quick." Fyren said, misunderstanding her tone and thinking she had merely lost her nerve. He sent her a smile, hoping to cheer her, but was met with a sullen-faced stare that was brimming with despair. She shook her head.

"I don't remember it."

Fyren was silent as he thought about what she had remembered. Finally, he said, "That's a mighty sad song for someone your age to be singing. Who taught it to you?"

"_Modor_ – it was at the wake of our cousin Cynne, and one of the old masters was singing it with another group – men who were warriors, I think – and she taught me the words later that night." Brytta wiped her nose on her sleeve and shivered.

"You know any nicer songs? One that's not about dying and such, mayhap?" Fyren tried. The last thing he wanted was for her to sing a dirge. He feared his own death well enough this evening as it was – listening to his own death song was far from what he would call a pleasant time.

But Brytta was not finished talking about the first song. "It's about dying in battle, isn't it? And the flowers – Simbelmynë, the little white grave ones? I like them. They're pretty."

"Yes, it is, and now if you'll be s' kind, I'd thank ye to find a nicer song – ye know any about great feasts in large halls with roaring fires?"

Brytta shook her head. "I don't know many. I'm only this old." She held out seven fingers. They were dirty and scraped, and in his heart, Fyren wished that these children had not been born for such times as these. Such dark days he and they had seen, and he feared more would arise with the dawn. Such dark days.

"You don't know a one more? Just a wee one, somethin' a mite more cheery then?" Fyren coaxed. "A drinkin' song, a Yuletide song? A foaling song?"

"Modor doesn't sing much – doesn't like it that Fasted." She glanced at her older brother, silently brooding in the corner. "Doesn't like it that he can't hear them, so she never sang much. Just when it was required."

"So you know the battle song – ever hear any other required songs?" Fyren was desperate. He didn't want the last song he would hear from a youthful voice to be the one sung for death. It wasn't fitting – or maybe it was too fitting, he couldn't decide. Yet the songs he knew were not ones meant for the ears of a little girl – they just wouldn't do, and he'd have to think back hard to the decent ones he did know.

Sighing, Brytta clasped her fingers behind her back and in a hollow, lilting voice that sounded more like a haunted recitation of a poem than a real song, she lilted,

_A/N: this short verse ommited due to regulation stating that I may not so much as partially quote another person's work even if I use footnotes giving them credit. _

"Can't be arguin' with that now, can we?" he asked wryly. Outside, if the birds were still there, they could not be heard, but the idea of them was enough to keep the travelers alert. To himself, Fyren echoed, "Can't be arguin' with that at all."

"Yes we can," Brytta replied flatly. "There aren't any trees."

Fyren chuckled. "Ah, but there are – in the mornin', if ye look out and see, you'll notice way beyond this, out south still more, there're trees, and beyond them're more trees – wild ones, they say."

"Wild ones?" Her response came as an echo.

Ah, that caught her attention – good, all the better to keep it until she fell asleep, better to distract her for now. What Fyren would do about the boy, he did not know, but the lad seemed well enough on his own, sitting in the corner mulling to himself. Fastred – yes, that was his name, Fyren remembered – looked well accustomed to solitude, and if the attention his younger sister was getting bothered him, he showed no trace of it on his face.

Aloud, Fyren replied with ease, "Yes, wild ones – they say they used to roam the hills, walking up and down and making the queerest noises – and all of them different. Some having long beards of roots and leaves, others tall and slim like beeches, and the old oaks all gnarled and aged. And all of them wild and free – aye, there are still tales that say they roam there still."

Fyren's words brought a glow to Brytta's eyes as she imagined trees wandering as if alive. Then her voice dropped in disappointment.

"But those are old tales, aren't they?"

"Old? Only as old as the trees are. All tales are old, after all – the ones of the trees, the wake songs, and the Yuletide songs. All of them old as old. But not all are cheery then, not the battle and funeral songs which you seem to hold so dear. I'm for hearing a Yule song."

Brytta frowned. "But Fastred can't hear it – it's not proper, it's like eating infront of someone starving, 'tis what modor says."

Fyren raised one eyebrow. "I don't think he's starvin'. Looks fine thinkin' by himself if you mind me say so. If I sing real low, he won't even know what he's missin', eh?"

She fidgeted. It had been so long since she had heard a new song – she could not even rightly recall the last time she had heard one. She was so cold too – a song would warm her insides, she thought, just a little bit. Fyren's jingling voice interrupted her decision.

"It'd be a right small secret a-twixt us."

A secret – a secret song that she could savor – a song only she knew the words to, aside from Fyren, she reasoned. It would be all hers, a delicious song.

Smiling in the dark, she agreed. "Yes, I'd like to hear it very much."

But Brytta stopped and frowned before Fyren could begin. It just wasn't right, somehow, to be singing Yule songs, even if they were secret. The memory of warm smiles and oranges at Yule, and candles lit to shine on their faces as they licked their fingers of the sweet, foreign fruits rushed back to her, and she sighed, and closed her eyes. She fell asleep the sound of Fyren singing alone, his clipped voice blurring in her dreams to a language she did not know, and her dreams confused her, for they were of places she had not seen, and of creatures only known in tales.

In the corner, Fastred fingered a piece of paper that he had pulled from his pocket. He knew that the two others were singing, and it mattered little to him. Oh, he wished he could hear what they were saying – wished indeed that he knew what it was like to hear at all – but such a wish could not be granted, and so he did not dwell on it too much. He had more important things on his mind.

There would be no going back to their home – that much he knew, if Brytta did not. So what was there to do? The answer was simple in theory – to go forward, since going backwards was no longer an option, and staying where they were, right there in the woodshed, would be absurd.

But what was beyond, what lay ahead of them on the plains? He had seen pictures in the larger holds during Yule when they had visited – had seen weavings of far countries of tall green trees, and a city of white stone that was built into the rock itself and had almost shimmered with the pure threads used to portray it. He knew there were places that were different. But he had never thought he would be heading towards them as he found himself doing now. Where would they end up, he wondered. And how far would the man who had let them ride with him go with them? Would he stay with them, or would he drop them when it was most convenient for the man? Fastred understood that they had been saved by his good graces, and that they would part with him when it best suited the man. If the young man stayed with them, Fastred decided it was all for the best, for he and his sister were young. Despite how the boy would have liked to think he could easily fend off any danger that came their way, he knew in his heart that he would be an adversary that would be easily dealt with.

Did he like the young man who was speaking with his sister, was making Brytta grin to forget the cold? Fastred was not sure. But they were safe – and the young man had helped them to be that way, and so any thoughts as to his character were set aside for the moment. Now, they were at least under some shelter, and after a yawn, Fastred folded the piece of paper he had been wrinkling between his fingers and placed it back in his pocket, then blew on his hands to give the tips of his finger some small tingling feeling again. He would think of their situation once the dawn came. Now, he was tired.

Though he did not know it, Brytta was singing softly with scattered stumbling over the new words as she repeated the "Yule" song that Fyren was attempting to teach her. To the silent tune, Fastred fell asleep curled in the corner, one hand in his pocket clutching the unfinished sketch of Hwesta.


	5. A Mother's Protection

Rohan, West Emnet, heading South, February 27 (Apprendix B: "Aragorn reaches the west-cliff at sunrise. Eomer against Theoden's orders sets out from Eastfold about midnight to pursue the Orcs.")

**Chapter Five: A mother's protection**

Dawn broke over the rolling white fields, casting blinding lemon and peach rays over the ground. Fastred was the first to awaken, and he did so with a start. At first he was surprised to still be alive – the birds had not been heard at night, but he thought of them waiting on the roof in his dreams, and he had not slept soundly because of them – and he was also startled by the numbness in his feet. He shook them and banged them against the ground as hard as he could, and felt the ground tremor slightly when he hit them hard. It was a hard enough shaking that he decided it would probably wake Fyren and Brytta if he did it again, and so with aching joints he unbent himself from his corner and walked out the door. The thought of the crows waiting outside churned in his stomach, but he reasoned that if they had not attacked during the night, that they would surely attack them in the daylight, and that going outside would only hasten the process – if they were there, then there would be no escaping them. And so he went outside, hoping that he would not be greeted with the stark black wings and sharp beaks.

He was not. He let out the breath he had not realized he had been holding. Once he began breathing normally again and watching his breath come out in grey puffs of smoke in the brittle air, he stomped his feet again harder, trying to get the feeling back into them. It was hard work, since they were both asleep from being tucked underneath him all night and from the cold that naturally came with the snow. The pain that shot up one foot when he slammed it down through the icy layer through the powdery snow with special vigor confirmed that someday he'd feel them again. Just so long as they were not frostbitten – that was something he did not want to think about.

Wintra stood beneath the small slanted roof on one side of the shed, and Fastred walked towards the mare to place his hands on Wintra's coat. It was warm, despite the cold, although snow had embedded itself in mane and tale. Though his mind wandered, Fastred rubbed Wintra's muzzle and let the gelding push tickling whiskers into his face. It felt good, and reminded the boy of the times when he would sit out in the fields sketching Hwesta, and the mare would come to tousle his hair with her nose.

The thought of Hwesta reminded him of the paper in his pocket, and he drew it out to study in the daylight. Yes, he decided, it was good. Not finished, but good. He rubbed it as his mind wandered. The familiar paper was a comfort to him, one that he did not dare let Fyren or Brytta see – it would make him seem weak, as if he were a child of seven. He was not. He was twelve, and he would carry on looking after his sister, and he would be strong.

Yet he could not do this alone. Not now. Not without a horse and supplies, and at present he could not think of any way of obtaining both. He could steal Wintra, he supposed, but then what would they do? It was wrong, too, to leave horseless the man who had helped them despite the obvious burden they were. No, it simply would not do. At least, he concluded, not yet. That was something required only in desperate times, and these were not that way yet. Fastred feared they would become so, but for now, they had a guide, as it were, and although they were still without blankets and other such luxuries, they would stay with Fyren. They really did not have much of a choice. After all, even if they did take Wintra, they would be no better off, and might even be worse. They could have the freedom to go where they wanted, but that was a large price to pay for losing someone stronger than they were.

Yet where would they go with Fyren, and for how long would they travel? Again this thought plagued Fastred. The man was a young herder – this much was obvious by his attire – and so how much of the land did he know? Would he know of places where Fastred and Brytta could go to? And if he did, would he take them there? Or would he point them in the right direction and let them go there on foot without him? There was Helm's Deep, the place Brytta had scribbled in a sketchy drawing for him to explain where the people might go to at a desperate time, but it was a long way off, and without knowing if anyone would even be there when they arrived, what would be the point in traveling that far? But if it was a desperate enough time, perhaps fæder would be there waiting for them.

So many questions loomed large in Fastred's mind, and none of them were ones he had the faintest answers to.

Deciding to explore the area, Fastred walked around the shed. There were no small imprints from crow feet on the snow, and so either they had not followed that far in the storm or their tracks had been covered up, or they had flown and had not lighted on the ground at all. But whichever was the truth, it remained that none of them could be seen now, and there was no visible evidence that Fastred could find of them being there. While this caused his heart to lift somewhat, he also wondered what had hindered them and if they would be back. If it had been the storm, then he surmised that they would be back in full force to find them. If it had been something else, then Fastred wondered what it could have been. Would there be worse to follow, or had the crows given up on finding their quarry? What had been their purpose in following the three in the first place, if not to kill them? And if that had been their purpose, would they be back to finish the deed?

More questions without answers. Fasted clenched his fist and hit it against the side of the woodshed, not caring of the small splinters of wood that dug into his hand. He barely felt it, for the cold had numbed his body. So many questions, and the one that was the worst was the simple one of '_why?'_

Why had it been their hold and Master Leofwine's hold and surely the holds to the north that had been burned to cinders and ash? Why now? Surely this was not some simple, mindless act of a band of reckless orcs. There had to be a reason beyond what Fastred could see. A reason beyond them. It had to do with Rohan as an entire realm. This could not be an isolated act against the holds in the West Emnet, could it?

Still more questions.

And why had it been their mother who had been in the house – yes, he knew she had been, there would be no deceiving of his heart in that matter. Why had their father gone away the week before? Why could he not have gone another time, so that he might have been there to protect them? Fastred swallowed. He feared their father had also been killed, though perhaps in more the fashion of Master Leofwine's fate. He had seen the body in passing as he, Fyren, and Brytta had made their escape from their home the day before. At the time, he had not had the will to think of it, but now the memory of the man's maimed body stung through his mind with bright clarity. The thought made him feel ill, but he only tightened his knuckles once more and let his forehead fall to rest on the damp boards of the woodshed. He clenched his teeth and tried to stop the painful scratching in his throat.

'Why?' 

It was simply not a question he could answer, and that infuriated him and set his heart to smoldering. He should not have had to ask it in the first place, of this much he was sure.

He let his fingernails dig into the soft snow-soaked wood while the sun rested warmly on his back as he stood with his forehead pressed against it.

How long he stood thus, Fastred was not entirely sure, nor did he care. How he wished for human voices again. He had only the barest memory of a wisp of a song, something from before he had gotten sick, before he had stopped hearing. He clung to the memory. As he grew older, it had begun to fade. He had only been about four, maybe five, he recalled, and any memories before then were hazy or already gone. He did not even remember getting sick, only the words that were so far away. The echo of a human voice in his ear – it was as if in a dream, but it came rushing back once more with intensity. The memory of words enveloped him, a lullaby he had heard. It had been his mother singing, he knew, but the voice was not one familiar. He just knew abstractly that it must have been his mother.

But now he could not recall the solitary sound at all.

With the memory gone, the lack of words, the utter silence he had lived in for so many years hit him as a hard slap. The memory was replaced with absence. The words were nothing. If they had not been the words of a lullaby, it would not have mattered to him, for they had long since lost their meaning. It was more a memory that reminded him of what he did not have.

And now it would remind him both of hearing, and of his mother.

Again his fingernails dug into the wood. He knew he had to stop before he began to cry, for if Brytta awoke and came to find him thus, he would be ashamed.

He bit his tongue hard, and lifted his head. The sun felt good on the back of his neck, but he walked back towards the woodshed. If he was lucky, the other two would still be asleep and they would never know he had gone outside. He knew there was nothing he could do to improve their situation. Honor dictated that taking Wintra was no longer even to be considered, and he knew in his heart that doing so would surely make things worse. And so they would have to wait to see where the road would take them.

During his introspection, he did not hear the shrill whinnying scream that pierced through the air, nor the clamoring of Fyren and Brytta as both awoke and fumbled and scrambled for the latch to the shed, both wondering where Fastred was, Brytta fearing most and the worst. He did not know anything of Wintra's rolled-back eyes showing all white, and he did not hear Brytta scream out his name, despite her knowledge that he would not hear her.

Only when he felt the trembling of the ground beneath his feet did he turn to see Wintra blurring past him in a fury of pounding hooves, mane and tail whipping in the wind, and close on her heels a dark blur of teeth and shaggy paws.

Now he was fully alert, seeing the forms of Fyren and Brytta by the woodshed door, staring as they watched helplessly the thundering pursuit of warg after horse. He watched in a dazed awe, seeing the sun from the bright snow reflect from the white specks of Wintra's eyes, the snap-second of a gleam of a sharp tooth – it was all color and motion, dark blurs of fright and fur against pure white snow, unmarred until then. He found himself to be sickly entranced.

Fastred heard nothing, but Brytta did, and she wished she didn't – oh how she wished she didn't have to hear the squeals of fright splitting her ears from the horse, and she willed herself not to clench her eyes tightly shut only because she wanted to be sure of what was happening, wanted to be sure the warg wouldn't turn on her older brother. She couldn't let herself look away from the inevitable attack.

Fyren watched with detached eyes, not thinking so much on what was happening at the moment – he feared for his horse but feared more for himself – than what was likely to happen as soon as the warg finished with Wintra. Where there was one warg there were bound to be others, and where there were wargs, so also there were bound to be their masters, orcs. Another band, he wondered – another bunch of them to ravage the land? To kill me – us?

It was Brytta who looked away as the warg gave a final leap to Wintra's back, claws digging into the smooth skin, ripping at the chestnut coat, the snow beneath splattered with a sickly stark crimson. That much was enough for the girl, and she turned her face the other way, covering her ears with clenched fists.

There beyond the shed her eyes landed on a huddled mess of wriggling brown. Her hands no longer on her eyes, she found herself walking with timid steps toward it, as if pulled. If Fyren noticed her move, he did not pay it any heed, his attention fixed on the mound that was once his horse with the warg's claws dug deep in the archaic arched neck on the ground. Fastred's attention was fixed there as well, but more unemotionally, the expression on his face more contemplative than distressed.

Tentatively, Brytta stood several feet away from the bundle of fur and paws and pink tongues – the mess of warg pups. Small noses sniffed the air and pitiful whines were breaking the young girls' heart – more so than the death of the horse she had witnessed moments before, more than the ache in her chest that she had tried to escape all night in fitful dreams. With a slightly shaking finger, she reached to touch the small ear of the nearest pup, only to scream in fright as a shaggy form bounded in front of her, teeth bared, eyes flickering and sparking, flashing. Fyren had not had time to react, and Fastred stared mutely as the warg stood, tongue and teeth showing, between the wispy blond girl and the pups.

Brytta could not stop the small sounds that bubbled in her throat, shaking and choking any words, could not stop the trembling of her fingers.

"Don't touch them."

She started, jerking her head up to the one who had spoken, staring at the massive head, the eyes that, upon looking deeply at them, were a dark yellow, still flashing.

"I, I – I wouldn't, you – you speak!" she blurted out, trying to scramble backwards away from the mother, away from the pile of pups, back to the woodshed. Maybe this was all a bad dream – it had to be. Wargs couldn't talk. She must be dreaming. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if everything bad had been nothing more than a dream, that any minute she would wake in her own bed to the sunlight streaming in through clean windows. That any minute her mother would shake her shoulders and tell her to feed the chickens – any minute now. She grabbed a fistful of grass and twisted it, waiting to wake up, but she didn't, and the warg took a steps towards her with the great paws where blood had caked on the fur, matting it. Brytta swallowed hard – she had to wake up soon, she thought.

Someone tugged at the back of her dress collar, pulling her quickly to her feet, and struggling to back away from the warg's cold eyes, she held onto Fastred's hand as he tried to pull her away.

The warg advanced again. Fyren knelt beside his fallen horse, his head bent, and Fastred wanted nothing more than to rip the man away with the fury rising in his chest, but he did not. The shaggy paws moved closer and the teeth of the warg glittered sharply in the sunlight. With a snap f her jaws, the warg shoved her muzzle towards them.

"You don't touch my pups." A snarl rose in the warg's throat and both Fastred and Brytta stopped shaking to sprint to the woodshed, yet with several leaps the warg met them there again.

"FYREN!" Brytta screamed as the warg backed them up against the woodshed. If the man heard him, he did not respond as he was still bent over Wintra's corpse.

"What were ya going to do with them, eh?" The warg shoved her wet nose into Brytta's face. "Wring their necks or put chains on 'em?" She pushed her teeth close to the girl's nose.

Tears welled in the girl's eyes, and Fastred clenched his fists, then before he could will himself not to, he pushed the warg's nose away from his sister. The warg turned and moved close to him, looking at him eye to eye.

"Whatcha gonna do now? Got a warg in your face, she could make a meal of you in a few bites, and you're goin' around pushing her away. You might make me madder than I am. Whatcha gonna do?" Fastred blinked, trying to understand if the warg was speaking or not. If it was, he could not understand the words, did not know the lip movements, couldn't figure out what it meant.

Fastred felt his heart beating out of his chest, beating into the warg's face that she shoved against his body. He could read actions – and the warg was good at telling with what she did even if he couldn't hear what she said, if she was saying anything at all – he couldn't tell.

"FYREN!" Brytta yelled again.

Finally, the help she screamed for came with knife bared behind the warg.

With a snap of her jaws, the warg whipped around and faced Fyren, eyeing the knife that he held in shaking hands that he tried in vain to still.

"Pulling a knife on a warg mother who's mad – real smart, laddy, real smart. So whatcha gonna do now that surprising me isn't an option?"

Fyren's eyes grew wide in surprise and simultaneous fear.

"Yeah, I talk," she replied to the unspoken question. With a curl of her nostrils, she gazed at him through half-lidded eyes. "Put the knife back. I could tear you to pieces and you know it."

The knife fell to the ground.

"Heh," the warg chuffed. "Won't even stand against a little old warg to save two kid pups. Won't even try, will ya? Just drop the knife, let all of ya die, wouldn't you?" Her grating voice had the wry tinge to it.

The warg continued. "Wouldn't even stand for a second, wouldn't even try to hurt me – I threaten you and you just give up, right like that. You Rohirrim! If ya all are like that, no wonder the orcs're takin' over everything. Ya give 'em your houses too, hand 'em some brands to light the flames?" She bared her teeth again. "You throw your childen to 'em like you just did now, practically?"

Fyren had no answer, only stared at the warg before him with wide eyes and a flush growing over his face. Brytta slid to the ground and wrapped her arms around her knees, covering her ears. She didn't want to hear this warg laugh about killing them – why didn't the beast get it over with?

Fastred grit his teeth and wanted to run at Fyren, he did not care that the warg and the warg was standing there doing nothing, its mouth moving and Fyren just standing there staring. He was angry, furious, that the man had dropped the knife, had not tried to stop the warg, and now was doing nothing. He wanted the warg to attack him, wanted it to tear him apart – he had not come when Brytta had opened her mouth to scream.

"Some guardian if that's what you are," the warg said, the gave a sniff with her nose and abruptly turned back towards her pups. "Lucky thing for you I'm not hungry – your horse tasted good enough."

This time, Fyren vowed to himself that he would get the warg if it was the last thing he did. It had killed – had started to eat, even – his horse, his beloved companion that had been with him through all his herding days and through the long cold nights, had helped them fly from the crows, had been so good about carrying all three. And now the warg had killed it as he might swat a fly away. A rage grew in the pit of my stomach and burned up to his throat, and he did not hear the gutteral sound he made as he flew towards the warg's turned back as she made her way back to her littler of cold pups. With a raging cry, Fyren raced at the warg, the knife clenched in his pale hands tightly, a fey light in his eyes. The warg would pay – he was certain of that.

Brytta and Fastred both shut their eyes as soon as they saw the warg turn at the last moment, meeting Fyren and the knife with an open mouth of spear-sharp teeth, and Fastred was thankful that he did not hear the man's cry as the warg's jaw snapped on flesh.

Staring at the children as Fyren lay at her feet, the knife fallen from his fist, she lowered her nose to the ground. Fyren groaned and cradled the bloody mess of his right arm where the warg's teeth had sunk in. She shoved him with one paw and he attempted to roll away from her, but stopped as the arm touched the snow. His face was contorted and Brytta looked away again after peeking out behind her fingers. The sight made Brytta feel sick to her stomach, and she felt like retching.

The warg lowered her face to meet Fyren's, and with a growl deep in her throat, she rasped, "Now get out. Get on and go. Leave the pups and that'll be the end of the quarrel – how's that for you? Take it or I might get hungry again. Now get on with ya." Her yellow eyes danced darkly in the morning light, and the numbing pain of his arm was starting to shoot through his whole body. Shaking, he attempted to stand, and stumbled his way blindly past the huddled children by the woodshed and past the fallen horse, on to the fields beyond. Brytta made a move to get up and follow him, but Fastred grabbed her arm to hold her back, his teeth still set with angry determination. He would rather die here than go with the man who had not come the moment his sister had called for help – there was no hope in that direction anyway, he knew, for the crows had been that way – surely they would come upon him if he continued in that direction. If they were to die, he would rather die here than with the man who preferred to mourn over his horse than help the children. Brytta squirmed and pulled against her brother's firm hold of her coat until she finally stopped to catch her breath.

The warg stood impassively between them and the pups. Brytta wiped at her eyes, shivering in the cold and not wanting to die, she wanted to wake up. The bad dream had to end soon, she told herself. It had to end.

"He would've let ya die, ya know," the warg said with a shake of her head towards the dark blur of the stumbling Fyren.

"He sang me songs," argued Brytta, angry and afraid at the same time, her voice warbling timidly like a small cold bird addressing a cat. "He helped us get away."

"Well," the warg turned her back. "I won't sing you songs. But I won't let ya die if I can help it, so it's your pick." She looked over one massive shoulder and then lowered her head to nuzzle one whimpering pup. "I don't hurt the little ones."

Fastred looked at his sister and then at the warg that looked like it was talking. Brytta finally met eyes with her brother and wiggled her fingers in the same motion the two had used when they made shadow figures on the walls of home against the firelight. Yes, it was talking, she explained with quick hand gestures, nodding her head at the same time. Fastred frowned and looked to the warg and then in the direction Fyren had fled. He didn't like either of the two possibilities the children had before them. Brytta understood.

"What do you mean, don't hurt the little ones?" Brytta asked, still huddled against the woodshed wall and not ready to move away from it any closer to the warg yet. "You're a warg – you're with _them_. The orcs." She spit the word out of her mouth. It left a bitter taste on her tongue behind.

The warg flopped down on the ground and the pups nestled into her fur. Without meeting eyes with the girl, the warg replied, "Do I look like I'm with them at the moment?"

"You could be. Where wargs are, the orcs'll be around. Master Leofwine told me that. He said if I saw a warg I was to run inside at once." Brytta didn't know why she was telling the warg this, but she couldn't think of any reason why she shouldn't. Maybe, she thought to herself, I can sound innocent and pitiful enough that she really won't hurt us. The thought came back that they had done nothing wrong before though, and now they were homeless because of it.

"Well, you're right. I could be." The warg did not meet Brytta's eyes and instead placidly licked one of the pups. She stopped. Her grating voice lowered. "I could be."


	6. Into the Storm

**Rohan, to the south of West Emnet, February 27**

**Chapter 6: Into the storm**

Fastred leaned against the wall while Brytta wrapped her arms around her knees once more. The warg had stationed herself by the mare's carcass while her pups gnawed at it with her. Though the children were still in her sight, she only looked at them occasionally to make sure they were still where she had left them. Fastred kept one eye on her and let his mind rest on the knife that still lay in the snow where it had fallen from Fyren's hand. The sunlight reflected off of it in blinding silver rays, tempting him to take it for his own. But he feared that the warg would see the move. Which would be worse, he reasoned with himself: to be trapped with or without a knife? He knew he could not win against the warg with it, but he would rather stand against her when the time came than to accept their fate meekly.

To be trapped here under the watch of a warg was to be awaiting their doom, he surmised. The orcs would come back to the scout warg (he had decided this is what the warg must be) and that would be the end of it all, unless they were taken as live prisoners. He did not think this would happen though unless the orcs had something worse in mind for them later – and what would warrant that? Nothing that he could think of. But if they were taken alive and he had the knife, he decided that it would be better to have than not to have. More than likely they would take it from him, but if they didn't, then they might have a chance, be it a small and unlikely one.

He decided to try and take the knife – it would be better to risk the warg mother's anger now than to be without the knife later when the situation was even more dire.

More dire – the thought that he could think of worse situations might have caused him to smile under different circumstances.

He knelt to the ground beside Brytta, who stirred slightly, yawned, but did not open her eyes. She must be tired, her brother realized. The warg looked over and then returned her attention to her pups, probably assuming that Fastred was only tired of standing, the boy hoped.

By scooting on the ground, he also hoped that the warg wouldn't notice him as much. With slow, careful movement, he slid his body across the ground towards the knife that lay several yards away in the snow, its hilt turned away from him. The snow beneath his body crunched and one of his hands thunked through the thin upper layer of ice to the powder below. Fastred cringed and looked to where the warg mother was, but after several seconds went by without her turning her head towards him, he moved another foot towards the knife. At last his fingers curled around the cold hilt, and as they did, Fastred realized he had no place to keep it. Fumbling wildly for anyplace to conceal his prize, he quickly settled on shoving the weapon deep into one side of his boot, where the cold steel rubbed against his bare skin uncomfortably. Still, he had the knife, and if being more uncomfortable was the only price he had to pay, Fastred was more than willing to bear it.

Looking up, the boy realized that the warg was ushering her pups back towards the shed, and it was all Fastred could do to scoot as fast as he could away from where the knife had fallen. The imprint it had made in the snow remained, and Fastred hoped the warg would not notice the weapon's absence. The pups stayed close to their mother's legs, winding around them as she walked. Occasionally one would sink through the top layer of snow and would flounder in the powder before eventually hopping back to the crust. Fastred almost smiled. They reminded him of the pups their dog had had two springs ago, all sloppy tongues and drooping ears. They reminded him of home.

Home.

And it was all gone, every bit of it, thanks to the orcs and their wargs. Wargs like this one. Like the pups would grow up to be.

The smoldering in his heart returned with burning heat, and he grabbed at Brytta's hand. It was cold, he realized, very cold. Brytta stirred, then shivered so that her whole small body shook. Fastred's heart nearly froze from looking at her pale face. Then his anger burned more fiercely. If they stayed outside the way they were, they would surely freeze to death before the warg gave them over to her masters, wherever they were. Brytta's teeth chattered and she shivered again.

"Cold, eh? It's like that out here, why ya need a fur coat to survive this season," the warg said, appearing from nowhere in front of the girl and her brother.

Brytta at first only nodded, but as the warg frowned, Brytta chattered, "Very cold. Didn't get warmer things from our house. All burned." The sentences were choppy and she blew into her hands in-between words, her breath showing in the cold air.

"Figures." The warg rolled her wild yellow firelight eyes and plopped herself down beside the girl, shielding her and Fastred from the wind. The pups at first stayed close to their mother, but she nudged them forward to snuggle close to the two children, their fur covering their exposed fingers. Fastred sent a questioning look to Brytta, and the girl tentatively asked,

"Why?"

"Because you're cold, that's why."

Fastred frowned as Brytta shrugged to him and shivered again. Still, he did not push the warg pup away, and it sent him pleading eyes and licked his palm. Despite himself he scratched behind its perked ears. It might grow to kill him, but it was endearing nonetheless, the boy realized.

The warg mother snuffed at the air, raising her nose to the greying sky.

"Snow's coming," she said, her voice devoid of emotion. As if on cue, the sky darkened more and small flakes began to appear. "Crows too." She pointed her nose northwards in the direction the children had come. Sure enough a darker patch of sky had appeared, and it was moving steadily towards the small company. Fastred's eyes centered on the crows and he took in a sharp breath. Brytta heard him and direction her gaze on what her older brother stared at.

"Come on," the warg said, jerking her head in the opposite direction.

"What?" Brytta asked.

"This way." The warg frowned when neither child moved. "If you stay there, they'll kill you, you know."

Still neither child moved, and Fastred gripped Brytta's hand tightly, then met her eyes. He shook his head. How could they trust this creature, this slave of the orcs? Surely she was only taking them someplace to hand them over to her masters, and there Fastred reasoned that they would suffer greatly. It would be better to die here than to prolong the inevitable. Better to get it over with. His body shook from the cold and at the memory of Master Leofwine's body that they had passed as they left their home. No matter his grit and reserve regarding the matter of staying, his body was repulsed by it.

The warg shook her head causing the thick fur to ripple in the cold wind. "Nope, don't think so. I don't care if you trust me, but I'm not letting two pups stay here for _them_." She spat the last word out as though it held a bitter taste. Brytta squeezed Fastred's hand and tugged on it, trying to guide him to the warg mother. She liked the creature, despite everything that screamed for her to run as fast as she could away from it as she had been instructed to do two nights before. "No," the warg said almost to herself. "Wouldn't do that to pups." A fey fire glowed in her eyes for a split second before it was replaced again with her grim expression.

Two nights – had it only been two nights since Master Leofwine had visited their home and they had offered him soup, and Fastred had been drawing her a picture? Only two nights? She shook her head – it seemed so far away, as if it had been a dream, as if it had been during a different lifetime, if that was possible.

Fastred remained seated and yanked Brytta back towards him. She wasn't going to go with the wolfish creature without him to protect her, and he was not yet convinced.

Brytta grabbed her hand away before her brother could pull her back again. She stationed herself beside the warg, a tentative stance of defiance. With one hand she beckoned to Fastred to join her, and although he bore a suspicious expression on his face, he followed and joined her. Brytta offered him a small smile in hopes of helping him to see that the warg wasn't going to hurt them, at least, the girl didn't think the warg was going to.

The snow had begun to fall thickly, already covering the tracks that had been made since the previous evening. Fastred and Brytta shoved their hands into their pockets, but still their skin was already turning a bright pink.

The warg stood to regard the approaching crows before looked ahead of her across the plain.

"Get on," she stated towards Brytta.

"What?" the girl asked, shaking her head in confusion.

"Do you ever hear anything the first time?" the warg replied in exasperation. "Get on my back, we have to go fast and your legs are too short."

"What?" Brytta repeated. Her eyes widened at the idea and she backed away several steps from the warg in disbelief.

"Get on." This time the warg was not merely offering them a ride, she was ordering, and as Brytta stared at the sharp white teeth of the beast, she took a step closer, then stopped again. "You are getting on now, or you are staying here," the warg warned, her eyes beginning to glow again and as Brytta still refused to grab hold of her fur to climb up, the warg snarled and her tone rose. "Do you think I'd leave my own pups for those crows? Well that's what's going to happen if you don't hurry up, they're going to get here, and then I can't protect you anymore. I can run but I can't fly. So get on now, and we might have a chance. Now."

The last word was more of a growl than a statement. Trembling, Brytta wrapped her fingers around a clump of damp fur. Fastred stood still, the wind whipping at his hair and stinging his eyes. He and the warg stared at each other, neither giving any ground. Brytta looked back and forth between the two, thinking that if they burned each other through their glares any more, sparks would fly up into the air.

With an abrupt whirl of her large body, the warg turned her back towards the boy and began moving at a fast clip so that the pups could keep up. Brytta dug her small hands into the warg's shaggy neck and leaned her head down.

"Please don't leave him," she whimpered into the beast's large pointed ear. "Go back, oh please, go back!"

The warg did not reply.

"Please! Warg, warg, please! Warg, WARG!" Brytta cried louder, but the wind grabbed her words from her mouth and threw them backwards. The warg picked up speed and the pups were running fast at their heels. Before them on the ground, shadows of several crows appeared, signaling that the birds were almost directly overhead.

Brytta clung to the warg mother's long fur, but did not turn her eyes away from her brother. As the shadows dipped down, she let her voice rise above the wind to the warg's pointed ears in as loud, shrill, desperate a cry as she could muster.

"_Go back_!" her voice beseeched, a plea that turned into a desperate wail. And that time, as if by magic, the beast turned on her heels, nearly jolting Brytta off of her back in the process. Padded paws thudded with a dull thumping against the cold ground, and for a moment Brytta felt as though she was flying above it all, would soon jump up and fly beyond the crows, beyond the clouds, to who knew where. She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut against the wind biting at them, that is, until they reached Fastred.

The boy had not moved from where he stood when they had left, but this time, Brytta clutched his pale hand, grabbing it tightly so that her brother was forced to climb upon the warg's back behind her. And just in time, for as he moved from his place, a black streak of feathers surged downward for them, aiming with deadly intent.

Brytta did not need to scream to the warg to fly, for flying they already were, barely making prints in the snow. The pups followed, surprising the children with their swiftness. Across the plains they dipped and rose, always a few breaths ahead of the crows, always a stumble away from defeat, but always ahead. At first, as the warg ran, she held herself back, but as they continued and their followers grew ever closer, she stretched herself, arching her neck further out, her paws reaching at longer distances.

A sharp shriek pieced the sky, and all thoughts of escape tumbled and blew away as if on the wind itself. Behind them, just a foot or two away where the pups had been following, a large crow could be seen, it sharp beak firmly clamped into the side of the warg pup who had been following furthest behind. A sharp, growling shudder ran through the warg mother's body as she leapt towards the crow and its fellows, her teeth bared and a howl bellowing at the birds as both children fell from her back to the snowy ground with a crunch.

Fastred and Brytta watched in horror, mouths partway open in shock. As soon as the mother warg had leapt into the gathering circle of birds, they had initially scattered in a dizzying array of black feathered bodies, going every which way. But it took only seconds – and not enough of them to give the warg any time to carry the injured pup away – before they had settled back down to surround their catch. They were large birds, bigger and more daunting than the children had imagined them to be when they had seen them far off in the sky.

Again the mother warg lunged for the crows, snapping and snarling and trying to bat them away with her teeth, her claws, her whole body; it was as if she had become possessed as she whirled around in the midst of them , and should have been enough to scare away anything. Except, as was becoming all too apparent, these servants of the enemy. She had ceased to be recognizable, instead had become a thrashing clawing biting storm of brown fur against white snow mingling with red.

Abruptly as they had descended, the crows flapped and cawed as they rose into the air, a mass of beating wings and throaty, raking laughter. Below them sounded a long, despairing howl which echoed and rolled along the plains, until it mingled only with silent snow and silent children. Yet neither child ventured near the creature, for her eyes were smoldering with a fey light when at last she lifted her massive head. Forward she strode, the cooling body of the fallen pup left behind her, and the children had to choice but to follow her with the remaining members of the litter. The crows had disappeared, but in their wake – though certainly not by their intentions – there lay above the group an urgency that had not been felt before. Onward they strode, the warg silent in the lead, Brytta and Fastred trailing at the rear. When the next day had in store for them, they did not venture to think much upon, and when they collapsed into sleep, the night sky held no stars.


	7. In Dreams

**Chapter Seven: In Dreams**

**February 28 (Appendix B: "Eomer overtakes the Orcs just outside of Fangorn Forest.")**

The warg shifted, her bones aching and tired, and as she turned, in her dreams she saw faces she did not know surrounded by the soft glow of light from within a hall, of food warm and plentiful, of laughter and song mingling together in the night. Of sunrises filled with golden and rose hues, of running through fields in the mist of dawn to catch the first glimpse of morning. There was another life to be lived, somehow, the dream told her. There were waving meadows of bees and rabbits to be hunted. A place to go to at night, a shelter. Yet she had never seen any of these things.

She awoke with a start and the dream drifted away almost completely in the bitter night air and on the small flakes of snow that fluttered down to rest on her coat, where they were forming a thin blanket. A sharp pain in her side, an ache, an absence. Her litter of pups was cuddled closely to the two pups of Men, yet the group was smaller by one of her own, now. There would be no more sleep for her this night. Nothing to do but figure out what would happen next.

The boy-pup was a problem, she decided. He had the knife in his boot, and although he was sleeping now, contented and calm, Men were easily swayed, and if they chanced upon some of his own kind, she was sure he would be bidden to do away with her and the remaining pups. Yet the orcs would treat them no better, would give them only the same life she herself had been granted. One that she was trying to escape. Though to what end, she could not say. To a life like the one she had dreamed about? The idea was absurd. She only knew that the life of hard iron and muzzles and kicks and whips was not the one she could endure any longer. Better to die younger trying to escape than meekly accept for a lifetime. Or so she told herself every few minutes.

Meanwhile, Fastred dreamt also. Yet only one thing of his dreamwas at all familiar to his was the image of torches, the same torches that had come to their home, and with that final image, he awoke to find the warg mother - Warg-as-a-proper-name, as she was now called by Brytta - staring at him with those copper eyes.

Disconcerted as he was, Fastred tried to avoid her gaze and to fall back asleep, but it would do no good, for she continued to look at him unceasingly.

"Can you hear me, boy?" Warg asked, padding softly towards Fastred and lowering her massive head to meet his at eye level. Fastred met her eyes with a coolness, but an empty one. Warg let out a gruff sigh, but let her wet nose touch his face. As she rested her head in her paws closer to her pile of pups. "Well," Warg said, though she knew full well the boy didn't know. "Well," she said again, but said no more on the matter. And so the two fell asleep, the boy's hand resting on the back of a warm pup, and Warg dozing with ears pricked.

As the sun rose over the hills to meet the travelers, Fastred woke with a start, his hand having fallen from the pup's back to the ground. The ground was trembling, and as he strained his eyes to see beyond the blinding white of the snow-covered plains, Warg twitched and woke also, her nose snuffling the air and a whine in her throat that the boy did not hear.

As one creature, Fastred and Warg whirled to the still-sleeping companions, Warg snuffling at her pups and Fastred shaking Brytta. Over the hill, the sun glinted off of spears and helmetes. And although Fastred could not hear it, a great echo of horns rang over the land.

"Come on, there're orcs, get a move on, come ON," Warg growled, and after Fastred helped his sister onto the mother's back, he began to run, and scooped up a toddling pup as well. The others could keep up, but this runt was not going to make it if it wasn't carried – how it escaped being the crow's victim before, Fastred did not know, and could only account it to bad luck. Well, he concluded, good luck on the runt's part, at any rate.

Warg ran and strained as she pounded across the land. She knew what the orcs had with them. Her former comrades must have found her scent, and if they caught up, her pups would no longer be hers, and the memory of chains and whips to keep her docile enough to saddle was all she needed to force herself to gallop faster. That was not a life she could bear any longer, and would not make her pups bear as well. Wargs had lost their sense of pack, and her former pack mates would just as soon betray her now as defend her. The honor of the pack was gone, beaten out of all of them. Except her. She would not give it up. And that fierce determination was what drove her away, this and many other times, again and again, and always their betrayal brought her back. But not this time – this time the crows had gone too far. She had always known them to be on only one side, and if you strayed from that side, you became the enemy, but they had gone after her children, and they had not run away. They had followed her orders, and were not to blame. Where was justice? If there was justice that had to be paid, she would pay it. Her pup should not have had to pay her price.

She ran faster. They would be no second chance, not after this. It was to be now that she escaped, or she never would. This much she knew. They were gaining ground between them, they were going to escape. This she repeated with every lunging stride away from them, her following betrayers. She snuffed the air as she ran and snarled. The scents of the others drifted to her in the wind that blew at their backs. Her own mate was betraying her. The realization forced her to spring forward in angry bounds, a red flame burning now inside of her. She would escape this time, or there would be blood spilled, and if it was hers, then so be it. Better to be dead than live enslaved with a crowd of betrayers-of-the-pack.

Where was honor? Where was loyalty?

Her heart raced and she sped onwards, with the child-pup clinging to her fur, silent. The Warg could not tell that the girl was silent only as cold tears fell onto the beast's fur. For behind them, Fastred was no longer in sight, and for the first time, Brytta knew that turning back would do nothing. Only as they lunged down another hill away from the following warg-riders did she whisper his name, and even the warg's sharp hearing did not notice. Down, they plunged, into a low bowl with trees skirting one edge. The two pups were at their heels, but the runt was still with Fastred, away behind them, and to what fate they would meet, Brytta did not know, or want to think about. She could only whisper his name. And so they entered the shadow of the trees, with Brytta leaving all hope behind as she heard the sounding of the horns across the distance once more, and the baying of wargs.

Once beyond the trees, they did not slow, instead wound around trees and jumped over fallen branches, twisting and turning until Brytta could not tell which direction they were going to or where they had come from. It was a maze of green limbs and shadows, strange animal calls and the sound of horns in the distance, though every time they turned another way, it seemed to come from a different place. Trees shifted in the wind, their boughs creaking in the wind, and soft plops of snow sounded as they fell to the earth.

Fastred ran, and ran still more, until he could no longer think of anything except putting one foot infront of the other. The pup that he carried was jumpy and didn't like being carried at such a bouncing gait, and so Fastred held it close to his chest, so that the small pup's heartbeat could be felt against his own, and to the steady beat of the two, Fastred ran. The sunlight was at his back, but still the sunlight was blinding as it shone against the pure snow, with only the tracks of Warg and her pups dimmer by their slight shadows of imprints. He followed them, up and down slopes, ever trying in vain to elude his pursuers. At first he had been able to see Warg ahead of him, but as she ran faster and faster, as if a great fire had been set behind her, he could catch a glimpse of her only so often, and soon every so often became only rarely, and then only rarely became not at all. A panic began to rise in his throat, but he swallowed, took even breaths as he ran, and grit he teeth as he struggled up another incline. But in his peripheral vision, he could see the gaining band of warg-riders approaching upon him, and as he tilted his head behind him, he lost his footing.

Fastred collapsed in the snow, the small warg pup wriggling still in his arms. The snow was too thick for him to run any faster, and the skittery pup was no help to him. He sputtered, coughed, and rolled to his side even as he saw the shadows appear and the hovering forms that followed.

A gruff fist grabbed a handful of his fair blonde hair, raising him up with a ragged cry of pain. Fastred struggled to escape the grasp, but it was to no avail. He found himself staring into the partially hidden slanted eyes of an orc. A long strip of metal grotesquely crossed partway over one eye to make it harder to meet, and it curved up into his helmet, where, Fastred sickly assumed, it joined with his skull at some point. The pup whined and Fastred felt its tongue slide along his arm before the orc roughly shook him and caused the lad to drop the warg pup.

No sooner had the warg touched the ground, then it was at the ankle of the orc holding Fastred, gnawing at the creature and quickly drawing blood with its small, yet sharp, canine teeth. The orc kicked at it, but though momentarily stunned, the runt scrambled back and bit again.

The orc's grip loosened for an instant as it again kicked the pup with a savage blow, and it tumbled backwards, rolling into a small heap of wet matted baby fur, whimpering. But in the moment when the orc's hand lessened its hold on Fastred's hair, the boy jerked back, crying out in pain as his hair was yanked, yet he fell to the ground as well, free from his captor's hold. Before the orc knew what had happened, the lad was running again in the direction Warg had taken Brytta, but just as quickly as he moved, so too did three other warg-riders, and the pup as well. The pup reached him first, but only by mere seconds, and as it started to lick his face, he found himself hauled back and upwards by strong arms once more, though this time thankfully not by his hair. 

The pup snarled and Fastred leaned as much as he could to let his fingertips touch the small creature's muzzle. In an instant, the tiny beast calmed and sat quietly by the boy's feet until the boy jerked to one side as a fist knocked his ear, causing blood to trickle down from it down his neck in a dribbling line of crimson. The pup snarled, gave a short bark, and made once more to attack the orc who had hit Fastred, but Fastred shot out one foot infront of the pup, creating a barrier between it and the orc sneering at the pair. The pup snarled again, small copper beaded eyes snapping.

Once Fastred's collar was firmly held by the closest orc, a sharp blow fell to his head and Fastred, son of Dunhére, knew only empty darkness.

Brytta tossed and turned, her dreams taking her to places and feelings she had not known she could think about. Faces swirled around her, of elves shining with moonlight and trees glowing with gold and silver light, of fluttering green banners with the White Horse of Rohan waving in the breeze, and of a stone fortress and swords glinting against bright sunlight. She dreamt of caves glittering with stones and of stern, sad faces. And she dreamed also of her brother, riding upon the runt pup that had also been left, and of them she dreamed more than anything else. Behind her eyelids, she saw them riding towards their old barn, her mother coming out of their home to greet them, and Fastred riding by without even slowing. She awoke suddenly, found that she was sweating, and rolled back over to let one of the warg pups lick her palm. Gazing up through the canopy of dark leaves, she counted the stars, one by one, until at last she fell into other dreams, which she did not remember upon waking.

Away in the distance, long after the girl had fallen asleep, Warg heard with pricked ears the sound of many wargs baying, and she sighed, but did not sleep. Yes, for now, they had gained their freedom. But looking upon the lone man-pup who lay in a fitful sleep, and the absence of her smallest pup, she wondered at what cost.


	8. Freedom

**February 29 (Appendix B: "Meriadoc and Peregrin escape and meet Treebeard. The Rohirrim attack at sunrise and destroy the Orcs. Frodo descends from the Emyn Muil and meets Gollum. Faramir sees the funeral boat of Boromir.")**

**Lower West Emnet, in the small clump of trees below the Entwade.**

**Chapter Eight: Freedom**

A/N: The speech patterns of the Orcs have been heavily influenced by Celebsul of The Burping Troll writing group. In addition, the Orcs used in this story are key characters with this group, and as such, while they may be read without prior knowledge of their characters, it may be beneficial to read the stories of The Burping Troll for further knowledge.

"Warg?" Brytta asked as she nibbled on the piece of rabbit that Warg had caught and she had cooked as best she could over a sputtering fire made on a great pile of sticks and dried leaves plucked from dead trees so that it would burn over the wet place on the ground that the girl had cleared of snow. She had not realized how hungry she had been until the Warg had mentioned food, and then she was ravenous long after the rabbit was finished. But at least not the faint feeling in her head was no longer there. Thinking clearly was becoming easier. "Where are we going?" She paused, then added, "Where can we go?"

"Where they won't follow us, you mean?" Warg replied. "Well, if they were going to follow us any further, they would've had us during the night. We'll go somewhere safe, I just don't know where yet. I'll figure it out soon enough."

Somewhat comforted, Brytta ventured, "The crows. They were behind us with Fyren. Were they following us, or were they following you, ahead of us?" The girl blew warm air into her cupped hands.

"Me. What'd you think they'd want with you three? They were following me ahead of the others, is all."

"Driven then by unlucky circumstance," the girl murmered, and Warg tossed her head in the wind.

"Mighty big words to use for someone your age," the creature commented, though she knew the girl had not been speaking directly to her. As such, Brytta gave no reply. Nevertheless, Warg gave a slight huff.

"Unlucky maybe, but not so unlucky as all that. Ya could've been found by a different warg, one not so kind-hearted as I am." She chuckled to herself. Kind-hearted was hardly the word she ever thought of to describe herself. "I'm the kindest one you'll meet, at any rate."

"You left him," Brytta said. Her words were colder than the snowy blanket that lay on the ground, and colder still were her eyes. The pups that had been wriggling and licking at her hands backed away into their mother, avoiding the girl's touch of a sudden. Brytta's tone rose, but still it was barely above a harsh whisper. "You left him there to do with one of your own. You aren't kindhearted. I saw that you are the most selfish creature I have ever met. You ran because you did not want to be theirs anymore. Not because you are kind. You left my brother to die, and you left your smallest one with him, and I am only here because I was your burden. You are the kindest warg I have met, but you still have the hardest heart I have ever seen." She stopped to take a breath, and then clamped her mouth shut. Staring at Warg, she silently challenged a reply.

Warg sat calm as stone as the girl spoke, and when Brytta was finished, Warg sniffed.

"The hardest heart you've ever seen. You claim to see the heart. Brytta, child-pup, you cannot see the heart any more than I can. You see my actions and I see yours. I left your brother and my child because going back would have resulted in only more deaths. I will defend those I love to the death, but if my defense will not change the course of time, if my defense will not prevent their death, then it is a waste of life. It would have killed you to go back." Her tone took on a low growl. "I carried you when I could have forsaken you and taken my little one instead. You slowed me, and still I bore you away."

Brytta lowered her eyes. "But you left him."

"His fate has not been changed by that fact, any more than my pup's would've been. You think I don't mourn? You know very little, Brytta. So little, if that is what you think." Warg sighed and lowered her head to nuzzle the blonde-headed girl who had buried her face in her fur. "So little," she murmured, though more to herself than the weeping girl. Long they sat in the woods, until Brytta rubbed her eyes and nose, empty of tears.

"So where to?" Warg asked as she nudged her pups , telling them it was time to begin traveling again.

"I don't know," Brytta said softly. "_Fæder _was north. Wargy?" she paused, bit her lip, then sighed. "Wargy, do you think he's safe?"

"Alive? Or safe?" Warg asked, looking over one shaggy shoulder as she surveyed the woods beyond the place where the group had spent the night.

Clarifying, Brytta answered, "Alive."

"Don't know. Can't say."

"So where will I go?" Brytta repeated with a stronger hint of urgency in her young voice.

The two pups raced around their mother as silence hung in the air.

"If," Warg said. "your father stayed in the north wherever he was, he might be safe, but the orcs and others are between us and him. If he went towards your hold, then chances are he's dead if the ones following me fell upon him. But either way, we can't go to him, because either there's no point, or we'll get killed in the process. No, don't bother asking it again, I have an answer for you already; I don't know. Know of anyplace yourself?"

Brytta shook her head.

"Well then," Warg said briskly. "Well."

Silence.

"Well," she repeated. "Gotta be someplace where I won't get killed on sight, you know." Brytta tilted her head in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Men see a warg, they kill it. They aren't gonna stick around while you explain that I'm a good one. Took you long enough to trust me, and your brother never quite did. Don't look at me that way, you know he didn't, can't say as I blame him. If I came riding up to a hold with you walking beside me and the pups, they'd have every lad and man sticking me full of arrows before you could say 'kindhearted'."

"Even if they saw that you could talk?" Brytta knit her brow.

"Oh, we all talk. But if you're the slave of orc scum that whip the words out of you, you learn to shut your trap real quick. Some of the others seem to have forgotten over the years, so only a few of us these days still remember the tongues of Men."

"What about your pups?"

"They'll talk when they're older. Something they'd never do if they were still under their mastery," Warg replied, her eyes glowing like embers.

"But what if I went before you to a hold and explained that you were really good and that they should treat you nicely?"

"Wouldn't work. They'd convince you that wargs are all bad at heart and that I'm lying and I'd kill you in your sleep the first chance I got."

"But you wouldn't do that!" the girl exclaimed.

"At least you hope not." The statement was accompanied by a toothy grin, and Brytta relaxed after a split-second of uncertainty. "The point is, going to a hold as group isn't going to work. I either find a place for you and let you walk a long distance hoping that they haven't posted scouts after hearing of the holds such as yours being burned. So where do we go? Seems like we just go the same way we're facing and see what we come across. Horses would be nice."

"Yes," agreed Brytta. "Then I could ride one of them and wouldn't burden you anymore."

"Actually, I was thinking horses because I'm hungry. Pups have got to eat, too. As do you."

Brytta paled.

"Sorry," Warg said with a shrug. "Besides, I'm free. No more master-rider. You don't ride me unless I say you can, and for today, I say you're walking." There was more than a hint of pride in Warg's voice, accompanied by grinning self-satisfaction. She looked down fondly at the two pups batting each other. Freedom. Yes, today would be a day without riders.

As the group began to journey once more, Brytta found herself staring in awe at the trees that hung low all around them. She had lived her whole life on rolling plains, with trees only ever seen in the far distance, except the few sparse clumps of them here and there. But never had she been so deep within a forest such as this one. Surely this was what Fyren had been talking about. Could these trees talk, if I asked them a question, if I tried to wake them, the girl wondered. A tree groaned from somewhere close by, and Brytta jumped out of the way as a heavy bucketful of snow fell to the ground, with hard icicles embedded in it. From ahead of her, Warg called back,

"Never mind that, Fangorn's the other direction, north. The closest thing to an Ent you'll see here is the River Entwash, or the Entwade, away to our left. The snow's just from the breeze."

Again the trees creaked and a branch was heard snapping, to land with a sudden deafening crash mere feet behind where Warg had been standing seconds before.

"Bad luck, that's all," Warg grumbled, but she nudged her pups on with her wet nose all the same, and motioned for Brytta to hurry over the fallen limb. A great rustling sounded high above them, and a small rain of brown leaves fluttered down to land on Warg's coat and in Brytta's hair. The girl smiled and caught one before it touched the earth, and held it towards Warg.

"Good luck, now, like _Fæder_ always said," she began with a grin, but it was a feeble attempt, and her better spirits faded as quickly as they had come. She let the leaf crumple in her fist.

"You say…you have caught good luck, and you intend…to reverse it?"

Warg whirled and Brytta jumped, falling back into the snow in the process. She looked this way and that, but no one was there. Only the trees swaying to and fro, and Warg eyeing the underbrush with barred teeth, and the two pups blinking solemnly. Brytta scuttled backwards as the wind threatened to send another large amount of snow hurtling down from the trees, and as she backed, her hands felt scratchy tree roots protruding from the blanketed earth.

"Such a funny little thing…an odd assortment, the lot of you…" the voice trailed off in a voice that sounded like peeling bark.

"OH!" Brytta exclaimed, and she scrambled up, with Warg bounding to her side with a large leap. "It's you!" She stared at the slim beech tree that she backed into, her mouth agape and not even noticing. So this was what Fyren had meant, this was what the tales told about – for here, long white limbs with tendrils of bare winter vines draping down like elegant garments, was an Ent.

"And where…might this…haroom…sordid group be traveling in the cold? The winds blow from the north, ill news….ill indeed…" His words were drawn out as if taken in deep gulps of air, then exhaled slowly as he pondered them.

Testily and unperturbed, Warg asked,"And what's it to you?"

"You…walk through my home….then ask me…hroom…what business I have inquiring about your intentions? That is very odd, very odd indeed…"

He leaned down. A slender tree-ish face with muddy bird-like eyes met Warg's shaggy pricked-eared one.

"No more odd than your kind being awake this time of year," Warg quipped.

The tree made a loud gnarled sound like logs being split, and Brytta took a step backwards.

"It's gone mad since it escaped the first time – taste of freedom's gone and ruined it. Tha boy's tha only one who'll calm it, thee done saw it 'efore we took care of 'im."

"One more mouth, with no usefulness. Get rid of it."

"If we get rid of 'im, the pup's worthless. Might as well kill it, too. Save us the trouble. It'll slow us down otherwise."

"Tha Master demands speed. If we keep 'im, we'll go faster than with a pup gone mad. Faster t' keep 'im then."

"And when we arrive?"

"Kill it after that, 'less it's proved more useful as sommat else."

Fastred opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut again. His head throbbed and as his fingers rested on the ground, he could feel slight tremors born of many heavy feet. He tried to right himself from where he had awoken lying in the snow, but he quickly found that he wrists had been bound with frayed rope. His eyes caught the red patches of blood that were in the snow where his head had been, and grimaced to himself. He stared up at the sky, tired and aching. He had ceased to care where he was. He was hungry, and felt as though even if a sword was placed to his throat, he wouldn't be able to walk another step.

A shadow fell over him, blocking the sun. Sharp edges of a helmet were starkly outlined against the grey sky, and Fastred had to blink several times in order to focus on the details of the creature. Abruptly a furry wriggling mass was dropped down onto the ground next to the boy. A sharply-clawed hand grabbed hold of his ear, but even if Fastred would have been able to hear the words, he would not have understood the harsh, guttural language that the orc used before it stalked away in the opposite direction, leaving the wiggling creature behind.

The warg pup licked Fastred's face, and the boy blinked again, this time out of confusion. His wrists were still tied, but he wasn't dead. 'Why?' he wondered, but his head still throbbed, and there was a stickiness that was trickling into one ear, dripping red onto the snow. The warg had a thick chain around its neck, and was tethered to something, but it didn't try to wander away, and instead settling comfortably next to Fastred and napped. Fastred felt his eyelids drooping, and was asleep again within minutes.

When he awoke next, the warg pup was snuffling at his face, a small chunk of something held firmly in its jaws, which it poked towards Fastred with a sense of urgency. Fastred shifted his weight but did not open his eyes fully. He felt faint, and would have closed his eyes completely again, had he not suddenly recognized the sharp smell of meat. The pup again shoved its nose into the boy's face, forcing him to focus on it, and for the first time in many hours, he felt suddenly revived, and more ravenous than he had even thought was possible. For in the pup's mouth hung a small portion of meat. The boy couldn't tell if it had been cooked or not, but he didn't care. His head still throbbed, and as he licked his cold lips for any remaining taste of the morsel, a shadow again fell over him, the same one as before.

The orc lifted a foot as if to kick the pup, but the diminutive warg bared its small teeth with anger dancing in its young eyes. With deft fingers the orc grabbed the roped that bound Fastred's wrists together, and lifted the boy to his feet. Fastred wobbled on his legs, still weak from hunger and fatigue, which earned him a rough shake before he felt cold steel resting against his throat. The warg pup growled, then sank its teeth into the leg of the orc, which caused it to simultaneously let out a howl and drop the knife.

Fastred bent down to catch the warg pup by the nape of its neck, picking it up to cradle against his chest as best as he could manage with the state of his hands. The orc cursed, grabbed at the pair and again the boy felt the all-too-familiar feeling of panic rise in his throat. The orc's breath was hot as it spoke, and just as he thought the cold steel would find its home in his body, Fastred found himself shoved forward with the pup still held close to him, away towards the crowd of orcs he had not noticed before. The warg licked Fastred's jaw, then looked over the boy's shoulder to the orc that followed close behind, its eyes dancing again.

Though Fastred could not hear the words, the orc spoke to his fellow who walked along behind the prisoners.

"Tha sees there's nowt but one way t' keep tha pup. It can't be controlled w'thout tha lad. He can be made to go faster."

"Gubbitch, thy's daft.."

"We need the pup. If tha boy can keep it from killin' us or causing delays, then that's what we use."

"Thy's also stupid."

"I TOLD tha, we'll make 'im go faster that we would w'th a warg bent on killin' us."


End file.
